My So-Called Emancipation

From Foster Care to Homelessness for California Youth

Summary

On
the day of my so-called emancipation, I didn’t have a high school
diploma, a place to live, a job, nothing...The day I emancipated—it was a
happy day for me. But I didn’t know what was in store. Now that I’m
on the streets, I honestly feel I would have been better off in an abusive home
with a father who beat me; at least he would have taught me how to get a job
and pay the bills.

—Roberta E., Los Angeles

The
day I graduated from high school my foster mom told me, “You’ve
been emancipated. You can’t live here anymore.” My social worker
showed up—I was still in my little graduation dress and heels, my
flowers, my cap on. My social worker had never talked with me. [She just] told
me, “I’ve called around and found a shelter for you. You have a bed
for four months.”

—Karen D., San Francisco

When children in foster care turn 18, they are, for the most part,
on their own. “Emancipated,” they are legally adults and free from
the foster care system. Most entered foster care because abuse or neglect at home
triggered the duty of the state to step in and protect them. The state becomes
parent; in that role, it must provide special
measures of protection. The state must ensure that children in foster care have
adequate food, clothing, shelter, health care, and education. But no less
important is the responsibility to provide the guidance and support necessary
for children to grow into independent adults. When the state fails in its
responsibility to protect children wholly dependent on it by not providing for
their developmental needs, there are grim consequences. While
exact estimates vary, research suggests that somewhere around 20 percent of the approximately
20,000 youth leaving foster care nationally each year will become homeless. For youth who leave
foster care with no job or income, few educational prospects, and little
emotional support or community connections, emancipation can mean nowhere to
turn and no place to go.

Human
Rights Watch interviewed young people who were removed as children
from their family homes for abuse, neglect, or abandonment and placed in the
custody and care of the state of California. After leaving foster care, they
became homeless. The 63 young people interviewed had clear conclusions
about the causes of their homelessness. No one pointed to a single event, nor
did any interviewee wholly blame the child welfare system or another person.
Instead, they pieced together a mosaic of events that spanned their teen years
and early adulthood. They described missed opportunities to learn skills, the
lack of the ability to support themselves, a shortage of second chances when
things did not go right, and the fact that no one cared what happened to them.

From Foster Care to Homelessness

For
some youth leaving foster care, homelessness comes the day they emancipate from
the foster care system; others move from a foster home into a bad housing
situation only to find themselves without shelter shortly thereafter. They may
feel lucky to crash on a friend’s couch, or they find themselves sleeping
in a car, at an emergency shelter, or in the park. Some are without a steady
roof over their heads for days that turn into weeks or even years. Those
leaving foster care with special needs often face a particularly rough
road: mental health problems or cognitive limitations can bar entry to a
transitional living program. So can being a parent. Youth who are lesbian, gay,
bisexual, or transgender often have even fewer community resources and support
to avoid homelessness.

Too
many foster children face poverty, early pregnancy, educational failure,
criminal victimization, or incarceration in early adulthood. Homelessness, with
its attendant dangers—including exposure to predatory crime, drugs,
HIV/AIDS, and violence—is probably the worst outcome for a young person.
Yet homelessness is a predictable future for many foster youth. Social workers
know it. Many policymakers know it. Research confirms it. California’s
own Department
of Social Services concluded that 65 percent of emancipating youth lack safe
and affordable housing at the time of emancipation. Although conclusions as to
the rate vary, homelessness is a certainty for too many youth leaving foster
care.

California’s Failure

The route from foster care to homelessness is not only
well-known to the state, but is, in effect, built into the system. Social
workers transport some youth directly from foster homes to emergency shelters,
fully aware that these shelters will house them for limited periods before
turning them out onto the streets. Others are sent to transitional living
situations with no back-up plan in place if things do not work out. Child
welfare agencies release some youth from care when they have nowhere to live.
Instead of providing extra protections for especially vulnerable youth,
including mentally ill or impaired individuals and pregnant girls, state
regulations often exclude them from transitional programs.

In
California, 65,000 children and youth are in the foster care system, far more
than any other single state. Each year, more than 4,000 emancipate. Between
2003 and 2008, over 26,500 youth emancipated from California’s foster
care system. If an estimated 20 percent ended up homeless, 5,300 young people
went from state care to homelessness in that period of time.

California is failing in an essential duty to children in its care: to prepare
them for adulthood and to survive independently. There is no magic switch that
at age 18 delivers the skills, knowledge, and support necessary for survival
and success. Just as the state has a duty to provide appropriate shelter, food,
and health care to children in care, it has a duty to address the crucial
developmental needs of childhood and adolescence. The consequences are severe
for young people who enter adulthood without this guidance and support.

Findings

No
Realistic Plan for Emancipation

California
state law requires child welfare agencies to develop, in conjunction with
foster youth, a plan for what they will do when leaving foster care. Most of
the youth Human Rights Watch spoke with had no plan when they left the system,
or if one existed, they did not know about it.

In
some cases, state officials fail to develop these plans at all, and in others,
they create plans that are unrealistic and unlikely to prevent a youth from
becoming homeless. For example, Natalie R. had three weeks left in foster
care when we interviewed her. She had not yet finished high school and tests
during the previous year placed her performance at an eighth-grade level. When
asked if her social worker was putting together a plan with her for emancipation,
she said, “Well, we’re talking about college.” There was no plan
for where she would live or how she would support herself. Arlena C. told
us, “My social worker never sat down with me to talk about emancipation.
The only plan was for me to emancipate. They didn’t talk about where I
was going to stay after I left foster care or anything like that.”She was 20 years old at the
time of her interview, and had been homeless off and on since leaving care.

No Plan for Housing or the Income to Afford It

The
vast majority of the young people interviewed by Human Rights Watch had no way
to pay for housing at the time of emancipation: 57 of 63 young people we interviewed,
or 90 percent, had no source of income when they left foster care and were
expected to be on their own. They were also ill-prepared to find and hold a
job: 65 percent of those interviewed had not graduated from high school at the
time of emancipation. In addition, 62 percent had no medical coverage when they
left the state’s care, despite a legal mandate that every former foster
youth should have state medical coverage until age 21.

In
the last ten years there has been an increase of funding and an infusion of effort
to improve transitional living programs in California. However, the number of
places is still far too small to assist all those who need them and the funding
is under constant threat. Most post-emancipation transitional living programs offer
reduced rent and can provide a supportive environment in which to learn life
skills. Services can include case management, assistance with education, job training
and support, and mentoring. California’s Transitional
Housing Program-Plus (THP-Plus) was established by state law in 2001. The
number of THP-Plus placements has dramatically increased: in 2003 there were
places for 50 youth, by 2007 there were 502, and in 2008, 1,234 places. Yet in
2008, 4,653 youth emancipated from care.

Basic Living Skills

Tony D. told us: “If you’re going to put kids in
group homes, in foster care—at least give them what they need to survive
and take care of themselves.” We interviewed him at a homeless shelter
where he was staying. “[When I aged out of care] I was expected to know
how to get a job, buy a car, all that stuff, but ... I didn’t have any
idea how to go about doing things. So, I ended up on the street.” Raul H. summed it up,
“Kids need to be taught how to cook, how to shop. Simple, everyday life
skills.” He was 21 years old when we spoke with him, and had been
homeless but now was in an apartment.

For
youth in care, several things impede what otherwise would be normal
opportunities for hands-on learning experiences. Foster parenting tends to be
geared to the needs of younger children. Foster parents are not trained or
expected to teach adult life skills to teens. Michele Phannix, an experienced
foster parent and a mentor to other foster parents, told us, “There needs
to be more training on teenage issues for foster parents and how to guide them
into becoming functioning adults. Foster parents are not receiving that kind of
training.” Dr. Marty Beyer, a psychologist specializing in
adolescent development and an expert on child welfare, believes those charged
with caring for foster children take on a crucial role. “[T]he role that
foster parents play ought to include what most parents think should be done for
their children before they go off on their own.” For many of the young
people interviewed, however, the state failed to ensure that foster parents
provided teens in their care the kind of basic living skills that would be
passed on in any typical home.

Nor
do group homes teach what adolescents need to learn. Interviewees pointed out
that the regimented, institutionalized setting provides even fewer
opportunities to learn and practice adult skills than a foster family home.
Anya F. was homeless for more than two years after leaving care. She spent a
good part of her teenage years in group homes, and described her experience:

While
in a group home there were so many things I couldn’t do. I couldn’t
even learn how to ride the bus on my own—but I had to go to a class that
supposedly taught me how to do normal things. It’s a double standard that
doesn’t make sense. It’s like they’re saying to us “You
must be independent by age 18,” but then they don’t give us the
room to learn to be independent. Don’t over-shelter us and then tell us
to be independent.

While some youth in foster care participate in
county-sponsored independent living skills classes, experts question the
effectiveness of teaching life skills in a classroom. In any case, many of the
youth interviewed for this report attended few or none of the classes, or said
that they were not useful. Roberta attended just one life skills class. She
described it as a last-minute cram session: “It was one week before
emancipation. They gave us pots and pans, silverware. Taught us how to write a
check. ... They gave us a certificate for taking the class and we had pizza and
that was it.” Others who found the classes useful tended to describe
hands-on teaching techniques.

No One to Turn to

One of the statements we
heard most from interviewees was that no one really cared what happened to
them, before or after emancipation. They expressed despair and fear about
having no one to turn to after they left foster care; this lack of social support
and guidance leaves young people particularly vulnerable to homelessness. While
the state is obligated to aid foster youth in establishing and maintaining
connections with relatives or other important figures, that did not happen for
these young people. 48
of 63 youth interviewed told us they did not have an adult they could turn to
in a crisis, for example, for a ride to the doctor if they were very sick. Nine
said “maybe,” there might have been someone they could call, but
were unsure. Just six youth of the 63 young people interviewed told us they had
an adult on whom they could rely. “I feel like the people who were
supposed to help me weren’t there for me—and I think what’s
going to happen to me?” one young woman said. “Am I going to live
on the streets for the rest of my life?”

Support Before and After Age 18 Is Needed

An abrupt end to
childhood does not comport with what is now known about adolescent development
or the norms in the US. In a healthy family, preparation for adulthood begins
early in life and, in most US families, youth are not cut off from support at
age 18. Instead, intact families continue to provide a wide spectrum of
emotional and financial support as youth move through early adulthood.
As Ashley, a former foster youth, said, “[N]obody puts their real kid out
at 18. It’s being realistic.” In
contrast, youth who age out of the foster care system must survive on their own
without the support available to other young adults. While some are able to
make a smooth transition to adulthood, many face serious challenges. Research
shows that that youth emancipating from foster care are more likely than young
people in the general population to have educational deficits and experience mental
health problems, economic instability, criminal victimization, and early child bearing.
They need support throughout early adulthood even more than the general
population of young adults.

The
young people interviewed for this report were currently or recently homeless
former foster children. They hailed from all over California, from communities
urban and rural, north and south. While there were many causes of their
homelessness, their lives bear witness to the need for dramatic change in how
foster youth are treated. This report is not a comprehensive review of what California’s 58 counties are doing to protect and provide for children and youth in
care, nor is it a survey of programs, systems, or laws. Instead, it is a lens
narrowly focused on one of the system’s most striking failings: the
likelihood that youth in foster care will become homeless because foster care
has not prepared them for adulthood.

Key Recommendations

1. Extend support
for youth in foster care beyond age 18.

Transition to adulthood should be more gradual than it
currently is for youth in foster care. Financial support, adult connection,
shelter, and other safety nets should be provided in a graduated way into the
early 20s for youth who need it. Youth who choose to leave state care at age 18
should have opportunities to return on the basis of need.

2. Guarantee that youth have
useful emancipation plans.

Legally-mandated “transitional independent living
plans,” which child welfare agencies are required to develop for each
youth’s emancipation, should incorporate concrete arrangements for
housing, income, connection to others, and medical coverage.

Everyday life skills should be taught in foster care at an
earlier age and not just in a classroom setting. Youth should be provided opportunities
throughout adolescence to practice tasks and skills for adulthood.

To prepare youth in foster care for adulthood, the state
should help them establish relationships with people who can offer guidance and
support through early adulthood.

For detailed recommendations, please see page 62.

The California Foster Care System

An Overview

The foster care system in the United States serves as a
safety net for children whose parents cannot care for them.[1]
These children find themselves in foster care through no fault of their own:
the state removes them from their own homes because their parents or guardians
have abused, neglected, or abandoned them, or have died. According to the most
recent count, the foster care population in the United States was approximately
496,000 in 2007.[2]
California’s foster care population of more than 65,000 children is far
greater than any other single state.[3]
Both nationally and in California, half of children in care are over the age of
10.[4]

Children often come to the child welfare system’s
attention through an emergency hotline. If the allegations are deemed serious, they
are investigated. A child can be removed from his or her home on an emergency
basis by a social worker or police officer and kept in protective custody for
up to 48 hours, at which time a judge must review the case and the parents or
guardian given an opportunity to be heard. The court makes the determination of
whether to send the child home or keep him or her in protective custody based
on the best interest of the child. If the court ultimately decides that the
child should become a ward of the state, it must review the case every six
months. Initially at least, the goal is to reunify the family. Social workers
develop a case plan and services are offered to parents. Parents may have to
prove they have rectified the neglectful or abusive circumstances. For example,
a parent may have to show improvement in parenting skills and proof of having
completed a parenting class, or that he or she is addressing a drug problem
through treatment.[5]

Nearly
half a million referrals for suspected abuse or neglect are made each year in California. In 2008, over 97,000 cases were substantiated after investigation and of those,
32,753 children were placed into foster care.[6]

The phrase “foster care,” as commonly used,
includes an array of living situations. The majority of children in state care
reside in foster families, group homes, and institutions.[7]
A foster family typically is a family or an individual who is not related to
the child and is licensed to take foster children into their home. Nationally,
46 percent of children in state care are in foster family placements, compared
with 38 percent in California.[8]

A group
home is a facility with a number of children or youth living there. It might be
in a single family residence, or it might be in a larger, more institutional-style
building. Group homes are managed by paid staff and can provide more structure
and supervision than a foster family or relative home. Nationally, 17 percent
of children in state care live in group homes or other institutions, compared
with just seven percent in California. However, the percentage of youth ages 11
through 17 residing in group homes is double that, at close to 14 percent.[9]

A significant number of children in state care—34
percent in 2008—are placed in the home of a relative. In California this is called “kin care.” This is significantly higher than the
national average of 24 percent; however, it represents a decline in California
from 1998 when 44 percent of foster youth were placed in the homes of
relatives.[10]

Foster care is intended to be temporary, to keep children
safe and provide them with all necessities until a permanent living situation
can be found. In practice, however, while many children spend just a few days
in foster care, others remain for years, with some spending their entire
childhoods in the foster care system. For these children, the role of the state
is more that of a parent than a temporary guardian.[11]

Emancipating from Foster Care

Children leave the foster care system for a variety of
reasons. Some are reunified with their parents; others are adopted or gain a
legal guardian who takes custody. But more than half of the children in state
custody leave the system not because the problems that pushed them into state
care are resolved: they leave simply because they become too old. In most
states, the government assumes no responsibility for youth from age 18. Foster
parents are not obligated to house, feed, or guide their foster children beyond
this age, and group homes no longer provide a place to live. In the parlance of
child welfare, youth who age out of the foster care system are
“emancipated.”

Under California law, the state may retain jurisdiction over
children in foster care up to age 21 but is not required to do so.[14]
California law prohibits an automatic emancipation based solely on age, but
most youth who reach age 18 in the system will find their cases terminated.[15]
Statewide, 72 percent of those emancipating are 18 years old, with just 13
percent older than 18 at the time of emancipation.[16] Although
the law in theory permits young people to remain in care for other reasons, the
only enunciated exception is for those who at age 18 have not graduated from
high school or passed the General Educational Development (GED) exam but who
are on track to complete an education or vocational program by their 19th
birthdays. These youth may be able to stay in their foster care placements
until they turn 19.[17]
The sad irony of this exception is that those who have not been able to
complete high school or other programs preparing them for economic
self-sufficiency before turning 19 are likely even less prepared to go out on
their own than those who are perceived to be able to complete a course of study
prior to age 19. “Some people need more help than others,”
Malachi told us. But the way the system is set up, those people may get
less support. “If you’re not doing good, like in school, or if
you’re messing up a bit, they don’t want to help you. They want to
kick you out.”[18]

In fact, California appellate courts have held that the
decision to terminate a child welfare case and emancipate a youth is within the
discretion of the court and that the best interest of the youth must be
considered in making that determination. Nevertheless, federal funding
for state foster care ends at age 18. As a result, the cost of extending foster
care may play a role in determining whether to retain jurisdiction over a
foster youth past that age. A state legislator observed, "Although
the juvenile court has the authority to retain jurisdiction over a dependent
child until the age of 21, the reality is that federal funding for foster youth
ends at the age of 18, and common practice is for the juvenile court to
terminate jurisdiction at that time.”[19]

Selected Federal and State Laws Governing
Emancipation

In 2008, Congress unanimously passed the Fostering
Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008 (Fostering
Connections Act).[20]
Some experts called this bill the “most significant foster care reform to
come around in a decade.”[21]The Act gives states the option to extend federal foster care
benefits up to age 21 for youth who are in school, working, in a job training
program, or unable to attend school or work due to a medical condition. It also
provides reimbursement to states that amend their laws in accordance with
provisions of the Act. For states that choose to extend foster care,
reimbursement will begin in fiscal year 2011. In late 2008 California Assembly
Bill 12 was introduced. If passed, it would, among other things, make California’s foster care laws comply with the provisions of the Fostering Connections
Act. At the end of 2009, the bill was pending in the state legislature.[22]

Both California state and federal laws include specific
measures to promote preparation for adulthood for children and youth in state
care. The John H. Chafee Foster Care Independence Act (FCIA) was passed by Congress
in 1999 in large part due to the growing recognition that foster children were
faring poorly as young adults.[23]
FCIA doubled the funding designated to assist adolescents and young adults in
foster care. Significantly, FCIA requires that states use a portion of the
funds for foster and former foster youth up to age 21.[24]

California law mandates that child welfare agencies develop
transition plans for youth called “Transitional Independent Living
Plan” (TILP) to help them prepare for adulthood.[25]
The purpose of the transition plan is to identify areas in which a young person
needs to prepare for adulthood, and outline concrete steps and goals to learn
those skills. The plan is initiated by the county welfare agency, and should be
developed with the youth and other supportive adults and first implemented when
a youth is 15 or 16 years old. It is meant to be regularly changed as goals are
met. Ultimately, it should outline concrete plans and set goals for after
emancipation.

For a youth to be emancipated, a hearing is necessary:
jurisdiction can only be terminated by court order. State statutes require the
county child welfare department to take certain steps intended to ensure a
youth is prepared to be on his or her own before a court will sign an order of
emancipation. The county welfare department must ensure that the youth is
present in court, unless he or she does not want to appear.[26] A law enacted in 2008 requires a judge to ask whether a
youth was given the opportunity to attend, and to postpone the hearing to a
later date to allow the youth to attend.[27]

For emancipation, the department must also certify that it
has provided certain things, including written information concerning the
dependency case, family photos, the location of siblings, important documents, and
information on how to access documents to which he or she is entitled.[28]
The agency must also report to the court that it has assisted the youth in
obtaining health insurance; made a referral to transitional housing, if
available, or provided assistance in securing other housing; aided in obtaining
employment or other financial support; helped the youth apply to college or
other educational institutions. Also required is assistance in maintaining
relationships with relatives, friends, or other important individuals.

Findings: From Foster
Care to Homelessness

When children in foster care turn 18, they are, for the most
part, on their own, no longer eligible for foster care. They are called
“emancipated”—they are adults, and free from the foster care
system—but this freedom often comes without the most basic necessities
required to survive. With no job, no income, few educational prospects, and little
emotional support or community connections, for some youth emancipation means
nowhere to turn and no place to go. For these youth, emancipation is a direct
route to the street.

It is unclear just how many young people emancipate from
state care into homelessness. A California-focused survey of approximately
4,355 youth who emancipated from foster care in fiscal year 2000- 2001 found
that 65 percent were “in need of safe and affordable housing,” a
definition of homelessness used under federal law.[29]
Nationally, estimates vary widely, ranging from 13 to 25 percent of
former foster youth becoming homeless.[30]

It is estimated that at any point in time there are over 157,277
people in California who are homeless, and of those 110,312 are thought to be
without shelter of any kind, that is, not even admission to a nightly emergency
shelter.[31]

For youth who end up homeless, competition for shelter can
be fierce. In Los Angeles, the county with the highest number of emancipating
youth, an estimated 96,169 people experience homelessness during the course of
a year. There are estimated to be around 42,694 homeless people on any given
night in the greater Los Angeles area and two-thirds

of that number are unsheltered.[32]
The rest are on the street or sleeping under freeway overpasses, in vehicles,
parks, storage sheds, and other places not meant for human habitation. In 2007,
the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority estimated that close to 10,875
people ages 18 to 24 were homeless on Los Angeles County’s streets each
year.[33]

Among the over 60 youth Human Rights Watch interviewed who
became homeless after leaving California’s foster care system, the
reasons for homelessness varied—some went straight from state care to
living in a shelter or a car. “My social worker was one of those,

‘OK, you’re 18, that’s it, you’re
out,’” Alicia M. said. She remembered getting no help from her
social worker in planning for emancipation: “I had no clue what I was
going to do after I turned 18.”[34]
Others drifted into homelessness after six months or a year in a temporary
living situation or a place they could not afford. Some youth tried returning
to their birth families, but found the same abuse, neglect, and chaos that
precipitated their removal in the first place and then became homeless. One
told of getting into college, but having no place to live during breaks and
summer.

The route from foster care to homelessness is not only
well-known to the state, but is, in effect, built into the system. Social
workers transport some youth directly from foster homes to emergency shelters,
fully aware that these shelters will house them for limited periods before
turning them out onto the streets. Others are sent to transitional living
situations with no back-up plan or safety net in place if things do not work
out. Child welfare agencies release some youth from care when they have nowhere
to live. Instead of providing extra protections for especially vulnerable
youth, including mentally ill or impaired individuals and pregnant girls, state
regulations often exclude them from transitional programs.

“Now that I’m on the streets, I honestly feel I
would have been better off in an abusive home with a father who beat
me—at least he would have taught me how to get a job and pay the
bills,” Roberta told us. Her conclusion is staggering when put in the
context of her extremely violent childhood. “My very first memory ... is
[of] my father hitting me,” Roberta told us. “He kept
sticks—you know the molding that goes around doors? That’s what he
would hit us with.” She described her father’s regular beatings and
the emotional thrashings that were everyday life before foster care. First
placed in state care at age seven, she was in and out of the system until 18.
Then her social worker told her to pack up and move out. The only help out the
door was bus fare. “On the day of my so-called emancipation I
didn’t have a high school diploma, a place to live, a job,
nothing.” Roberta told us she had slept on the streets, in shelters, on a
friend’s couch, and, for a couple of weeks, in a motel room.[35]

Nowhere to Turn

Temporary Shelter

Human Rights Watch interviewed youth who immediately became
homeless when they emancipated, going directly from state care to the streets
or a temporary shelter. Some youth described state officials driving them from
a foster or group home to an emergency shelter upon their emancipation. Karen’s
experience began on what is supposed to be a carefree day marking a rite of
passage:

The day I graduated from high school my foster mom told me,
“You’ve been emancipated. You can’t live here anymore.”
My social worker showed up—I was still in my little graduation dress and
heels, my flowers, my cap on. My social worker had never talked with me. [She
just] told me, “I’ve called around and found a shelter for you. You
have a bed for four months.”[36]

We interviewed 18-year-old Lestat at an emergency shelter.
His experience was similar to Karen’s: “The same day that I
graduated from high school, my group home social worker told me,
‘I’m taking you to a shelter.’ After I got home from
graduation, I had to pack my stuff and I was packing my graduation cap and my
tassel and I thought to myself, ‘God, is this really happening to
me?’ And then my group home social worker drove me here to this
shelter.”[37]

When Michael Y. turned 18, a probation officer drove him to
an adult homeless shelter and dropped him off. We interviewed him at a shelter.
As he described his life, he would not make eye contact and spoke so quietly
that, even though he sat inches away, it was hard to hear his words. He had no
money, he told us. “She gave me five bucks out of her own purse,”
he recalled of the person who left him at the shelter.[38]

Tiffany T. was taken from her foster home directly to a
shelter when she graduated from high school. The shelter only allows people to
stay for two months though; when we interviewed her she had been evicted from
that shelter and was now at an emergency shelter and was number 25 on a wait
list for a transitional living program. She thought it would be more than six
months before she could get into the transitional program.[39]

The varied ages of those interviewed, including young people
who had emancipated only months prior to meeting with Human Rights Watch, and
their experiences across California suggest that the practice of state
officials transporting youth to shelters on their emancipation day is
longstanding and not limited to specific geographic areas. James M., the
director of a youth homeless shelter, told us he regularly has emancipated
youth dropped off at his shelter, even though the shelter is intended for children
under age 18.[40]
The social workers who drop off emancipated foster youth there probably do so
because there is no other place to take them in that area, he said. “They
leave them down the street, a block away, literally leave them by the gate and
point them in the direction of our shelter,” he explained. [41]
At the time of Human Rights Watch’s visit to this shelter, there were at
least five former foster youth staying there.

As Tiffany’s experience illustrates, shelters do not
keep young people off the street for long, as there are often limits on how
long someone can stay. Dee H., a former foster youth, was at an emergency
shelter at the time of our interview. Eighteen years old and pregnant, she was
sad and subdued during her interview. She told us, “I’ll be kicked
out of here tomorrow. A lot of places won’t take me because I’m
pregnant. I found [this shelter] in the phone book.”[42]
She said she had no idea where she would go after her time at the shelter ran
out.

Some young people interviewed were kicked out of their
foster or group home without being taken to a shelter. “I was told on
Wednesday that I had until Saturday to move out of the

[group]
home where I was staying,” Warren H. explained. “It caught me by
surprise. I tried to tell [the guy running the group home] that I had no place
to go, but he told me I couldn’t stay there.” Warren offered to pay
rent. “I asked, ‘Couldn’t I stay in the garage?’ The
guy told me, ‘No, you can’t stay here. You don’t make enough
money to pay rent—it wouldn’t be worth it to me.’”[44]
For the next two years he slept where he could, in his car, shelters, or the
occasional friend’s couch. Aaron T. also said he slept in his car after
turning 18 in a group home. “Sometimes you think it’s better to be
in jail or dead. But I tried to think positive about it. My Pontiac was
comfortable.”[45]

Staying in a homeless shelter can be more dangerous than
finding a place to sleep on the streets, some interviewees told us. This is
particularly true for shelters designed for adults. “I feel safer on the
streets than in shelters. Shelters are violent, they’re dirty. The
security is violent; there are a lot of drug addicts,” Roberta told us.
“On the streets you can find quieter, safer places.”[46]

Young people told us of setting up tents in the woods and
putting sleeping bags under freeway overpasses. Enrique A. took a Human Rights
Watch researcher to his favorite tent site along a wooded riverbank. Stopping
at a flat area a few feet from the river’s edge he said, “Right here was my campfire pit.”[47]
He described raking the dirt and leaves at his campsite to make sure there were
no needles left there from heroin users; he worried about stepping on them or
having them poke through the floor of his tent. He remembered one particularly
dangerous evening: “I never knew how many people were in these woods
until one night there was a fire and everyone came running out.”[48]

Matt H. remembers what it was like with nowhere to go one
cold and raining night. “Night comes. It’s cold. I’m hungry.
Where am I going to go?”[49]
He was arrested for breaking into and sleeping in an empty house.

Others described staying at friends’ homes, moving
from couch to couch. Dion W. stayed at a number of friends’ houses,
and tried to hide the fact that he had nowhere to live. “The whole time I
was homeless I didn’t tell people what was going on. I couldn’t
believe myself that this was happening.”[50]

Returning to Birth Families

A common but often unsustainable option is returning to the
birth family. Tayla G. said she felt her only option was to return to her birth
mother: “I was in foster care because my mother was abusive, due to
addiction ... [and] drinking. When I got out of foster care, my only place to
go was back to my mom.” The return was equally as rough: “I only
stayed a couple months there. I wasn’t sure when I’d wake up and
find her yelling at me to get out ... It was too hard ... her drinking, hitting
on me, talking down to me, calling me names.”[51]

Marvin M. also tried returning to the birth family he had
been removed from when placed in foster care. At 18 when he was told he had to
leave his group home, Marvin moved in with his biological mother. Her
long-standing drug addiction had been the cause of his placement in foster care
in the first place. But at the time he emancipated, she was not using
drugs, so he tried moving back in with her. “It was hard trusting
her,” he said, explaining that she still “didn’t have herself
together.” Living with her did not last long; she returned to drug
use. Later, Marvin found himself homeless.[52]

When Sandy S. left foster care, she had nowhere to go. She
turned to the only adult she knew: a family member who had sexually abused her.
“At that time I didn’t want to be anything, I just wanted to die. I
didn’t care what happened to me.” She lived with him for over two
years as the abuse escalated, enduring rape, beatings, and emotional torment.
When she gathered the courage to leave at age 20, she slept in her car for several
months. She later moved in with a boyfriend she did not want to live with, she
said, only to have a place to stay.[53]

Whitney Rhodes is a former foster youth, who, when we
interviewed her, was an emancipation specialist with AmeriCorps, working with high
school students in foster care. Rhodes told Human Rights Watch, “I see a
lot of young people who have no place to go when they get out. The family you
get taken away from is still there—that’s why you go back to them
no matter how dysfunctional they are.”[54]

Unsafe and Undesirable Alternatives to Living on
the Street

The pressure of not having a place to live can push youth
into choosing prostitution or abusive relationships in order to get off the
street. “When I had no place to go at night, I would go home with
someone,” Jaime N. said of his choosing prostitution over sleeping in a
park or building doorway.[55]
Jose C., in a transitional living program when we spoke with him, described a
similar situation: “A lot of times I’d go home with somebody so I
didn’t have to be on the streets.”[56]

Several
of the interviewees lamented the fact that they entered into romantic
relationships in order to have a place to live. “I got into a
relationship just so I could stay [at the person’s home],” said Roberta,
reflecting on how her desperation left her feeling trapped in an abusive
relationship.[57]
“I see females saying, ‘I’m going to live with my boyfriend
because I don’t have no place to go.’ I know for a fact some
of these are abusive relationships, but they have no other place to go,”
observed Dee Melendez, a liaison to former foster youth and financial aid
specialist at a community college.[58]

Heather Carmichael is the associate executive director of My
Friend’s Place, a drop-in center for homeless youth in Hollywood. Many of
the youth My Friend’s Place serves are former foster children. She notes
that young people who are homeless are extremely vulnerable to victimization:

We all just want to be loved, and these young people are
starving for that. To get that love they are willing to compromise little
pieces of themselves—and it can end up being big pieces. So many have
histories where they’ve been taught that their bodies are not their own;
they have histories of sexual abuse. Some youth learn to use their bodies for
survival and provide sex for the things they need—it could be food, a
place to stay, a job.[59]

A foster parent for many years said that in her experience,
youth with cognitive limitations or learning disabilities are especially
vulnerable in this regard: “They go along with someone who might be bad
for them, but they go along because they’ll be loved.”[60]

College

Going off to college does not necessarily address housing
issues. When Melendez, the Financial Aid Specialist for Victor Valley College,
was first appointed by the college chancellor to be a liaison for former foster
youth, she started tracking the population. “I noticed that their grades
are pretty bad,” she said. But when Melendez looked deeper into the issue
she found, “It’s not that they’re not smart enough, or
don’t apply themselves ... it’s that some of them don’t have
a place to live. They’re worried about where [they are] going to sleep
tonight.” Some have to quit school. Students tell Melendez,
“I’ve just started this semester, but I have to stop. I don’t
have a place to live.”[61]

Eighteen-year-old Derek P. was attending college while
living in his truck when we spoke with him. He said he was booted from his
group home when he turned 18. “I’m living inside my car,” he
told us, his red Chevy Blazer sitting in the parking lot next to where we met.
“It’s a four-door, and I can drop the back seat, so that’s my
bed. I got blankets, whatnot.” When he wakes in the morning, he said, he
parks his car in a safe place and, because he cannot afford the cost of gas, he
takes the bus to the community college. There he is studying auto repair,
French, and music interpretation. “I go buy Top Ramen [instant noodles] ...
they got microwaves at the college so ... you know. But it’s alright.
It’s alright.”[62]
“A lot of students are brushing their teeth and washing their hair
in the bathroom (at community college),” said Melendez.[63]

Even youth who leave foster care for college and live in a
dorm may end up scrambling for a place to live when the dorms close for summer
and breaks. Melissa B. headed to college after leaving foster care but found
that each round of breaks brought another housing challenge. “Our
[college] had a long winter break—six weeks—and I had nowhere to
go,” she said.[64]
Gerry Hauser, a foster parent for 35 years, recalled the experience of one
of her foster sons who went to college after foster care. “At summer
time, he came back to us, but we couldn’t help him because we had other
children living with us.” She explained that state licensing regulations
prohibited another person in the house. “He slept in his car in the
driveway or in the loft in our garage. It was hard for him.”[65]

California Failed to Prepare these Youth for
Adulthood

When the state removes a child from home for parental neglect
or abuse, the child becomes wholly dependent on the state for food, shelter,
and access to education. But no less important is the guidance and support that
a child requires to grow into an independent adult. Young people need to learn
skills for adulthood and they need solid plans for income, housing, and support
before they are on their own. Existing state law recognizes these tasks as
essential, yet for the youth interviewed for this report, the state has failed.

In
relating the stories of their lives in foster care and tracing the reasons for
their homelessness, young people pointed to missed opportunities to learn
skills, the lack of the ability to support themselves, a shortage of second
chances when things did not go right, and to the lack of anyone in their lives
who really cared about what happened to them.

No Realistic Plan for Emancipation

State law requires child welfare agencies to develop in
conjunction with a youth a Transitional Independent Living Plan (TILP).[66]
In some cases, state officials fail to develop these plans at all, and in
others they develop plans that are unrealistic and unlikely to prevent a youth
from becoming homeless.

Most of the youth Human Rights Watch spoke with had no plan
in place when they left the system, or if they did, they did not know about it.
For example, Arlena C. told us, “My social worker never sat down with me
to talk about emancipation. The only plan was for me to emancipate. They
didn’t talk about where I was going to stay after I left foster care or
anything like that.”[67]
Phillip O., who also said he did not have a plan when he left foster care, told
us, “I didn’t really see my social workers much—really,
I’d be lucky to see a social worker once a year.”[68]
Sandy S. got no support in planning for leaving foster care and being on her
own. “The social worker said, ‘Figure out what you are going to do
with your life.’ No help, just a statement. When I turned 18, I had
nowhere to go.”[69]
Dion also left state care

without a plan in place. He got in to transitional housing a
month later, but in the interim was homeless.[70]

Title IV-B Child and Family Services Plan for fiscal years
2005-2009 describes the Transitional Independent Living Plan. It states that
the plan should focus on “educational and experiential learning needed
for youth to function as healthy, productive and responsible self-sufficient
adults.”[71]
Recognizing that the TILP process was failing to involve youth, the State
Health and Human Services Agency, Department of Social Services issued a new
form and new instructions for use starting in October 2008. “The purpose
of the TILP is to describe the youth’s current level of functioning,
identify emancipation goals, services, activities and individuals assisting the
youth in the process of obtaining self-sufficiency,” the letter to all
counties specifies.[72]
The new form has space for four goals. In one set of training materials
examples of goals include learning to do laundry, improving an algebra grade,
seeking information from a school counselor on how to work in a
veterinarian’s office, and beginning dating by asking another youth to go
to a movie.[73]

In cases in which youth did have a plan put in place prior
to leaving care, they reported that the plans were not realistic or appropriate
for their needs. At the time Natalie R. was interviewed, she had three weeks
until she would be emancipated from the system. She had not yet finished high
school and the previous year had tested at an eighth-grade level. When asked if
her social worker was putting together a plan with her for when she left, she
answered, “Well, we’re talking about college.”[74]

At
least in some cases, even judicial review at a youth’s final dependency
hearing does not keep young people from moving on without a plan in place. Tina
Hughes said she was astonished at her foster daughter’s hearing. The
attorney representing her daughter had never even met the young woman. Hughes
wondered if he had reviewed the file. “We went to court. There was an
attorney there, he didn’t talk to [my foster daughter,] he didn’t
even have her right name. He’d gotten the case Thursday afternoon and
Friday morning was court.”[75]
Another young woman, Tayana I., recalled her own hearing: “I didn’t
speak to the judge; I didn’t even go into [the courtroom].” She
speculated on what the judge said about her case: “Basically I think the
court said, ‘Just let her go.’”[76]
Malachi had been allowed by court to stay with his foster mother after age 18
because he was working towards a high school diploma. When he got a job,
he needed help figuring out how to get to his workplace from his foster home.
His social worker did not help, and Malachi decided to leave and go live with a
friend. There was no hearing, or, to Malachi’s knowledge, any judicial
review of his emancipation. A few months later he was out of work and had no
place to live.[77]

At 18, Marvin had to leave a group home in Fresno, a different
county than his home county. That meant moving back across that state before he
graduated from high school. Back in San Diego, he remembers the judge’s
assessment at his emancipation hearing: “You’re doing good, even
though you didn’t get to graduate.” But in fact, in addition to no
diploma, he had no source of income. He told us that the judge did not ask how
he would support himself. He lived with his unstable biological mother for a while,
but later found himself homeless.[78]

No Income to Afford Housing

In California, the lack of affordable housing is a problem
of crisis proportions in many locations. Housing costs are one reason that
homelessness is an epidemic in California.

Compared to their peers, former foster youth have a tough
time meeting basic housing-related expenses. According to a 2007 large scale,
longitudinal study of young adults emancipated from foster care, 21-year-old
former foster youth were more than three times as likely to have been unable to
pay the rent in the last year as their peers who had not been in foster care.
They were also more likely to have had utilities shut off, phone service
disconnected, and to have faced eviction.[79]

The vast majority of those we interviewed who became
homeless had no source of income at the time of emancipation. Ninety percent of the
interviewees had no source of income at the time of emancipation, and
thus, no way to pay for housing.[80]

The social workers who managed these cases, the judges who
signed the emancipation orders, the attorneys and others involved should have
known that without income, homelessness was the likely outcome.

Most were poorly equipped to find a job, as well: 65 percent of those interviewed
had not graduated from high school at the time they left foster care. In
addition, only 62 percent of the interviewees were enrolled in Medi-Cal, the
state health care plan that by law provides medical coverage to all former
foster children up to age 21.[81]
Tony D.’s situation was typical: “I was expected to know how to get
a job, buy a car, all that stuff, but ... I didn’t have any idea how to
go about doing things. So, I ended up on the street.”[82]

Transitional Housing

California’s Transitional Housing Program-Plus (THP-Plus)
was established by state law in 2001.[83]
It is the state’s primary program for housing former foster children who
have emancipated from the system, providing housing and services for up to 24
months for young adults ages 18 to 24.[84] Its
services directly affect the lives of former foster youth who are homeless: a
report published in 2009 found that 39 percent of participants in the THP-Plus
program had been homeless at some point before entering the program.[85]

In recent years there has been a tremendous infusion of
funding and effort to improve transitional living programs in California. In 2006,
California increased the amount of funding for THP-Plus, and made it easier for
counties to provide the program for former foster youth. The annual budget for THP-Plus
in the 2008-09 fiscal year was $40.8 million, although in the fall of 2009,
those funds were reduced in response to the state’s budget crisis.

At their best, post-emancipation transitional living
programs can not only subsidize the rental cost of housing, but also provide a
supportive environment in which to learn life skills. Services can include case
management, assistance in pursuing post-second­ary education, job readiness
training and support, mentoring, and support for building permanent relationships
with caring adults.[86]
Unfortunately, some existing programs only prolong state custody without
assisting youth in preparing for their independence.

The THP-Plus Statewide Implementation Project was created in
2006 as a partnership between state agencies and private organizations.[87]
The project provides technical assistance and training to service providers,
and has also has begun analyzing the effectiveness of programs, using, among
other things, input from young adult participants. If it accomplishes its
goals, the amount of transitional housing for former foster youth will increase
and the quality of supportive services will improve.

The number of placements has dramatically increased since
the program’s inception: in 2003 THP-Plus had a moment-in-time capacity
of 50 youth, by 2007 the figure was over 500, and during 2009 it rose to 1,300.[88]
According to the most recent THP-Plus annual report, 1,548 former foster and
probation youth in 39 counties received affordable housing and services through
THP-Plus in the 2007-2008 fiscal year.[89]

These efforts are perhaps the most promising steps the state
has taken toward supporting emancipated youth. Nevertheless, the placements
available to youth fall short of the need. In 2008 alone, over 4,600 youth emancipated.
Each year another group of youth emancipate and join the ranks of young adults
competing for housing and services: The group of 18 to 24 year olds who would
be eligible for THP-Plus on the basis of age in 2008 would be those who had
emancipated in the years 2003 through 2008, a total of over 26,500 young
people.[90]
While all youth may not need or want to participate in the THP-Plus, the high
rate of homelessness among former foster youth compared to the 1,548 persons
served in 2008 suggests that there are not enough placements for youth leaving
care.[91]

The availability of placements varies dramatically from
county to county. For example, the THP-Plus Statewide Implementation Project
estimates that Alameda County has the potential to meet between 64 and over 100
percent of the need for THP-Plus placements. Los Angeles, however, is thought
to only meet between four and seven percent of the county’s need.[92]
Dee Melendez, Financial Aid Specialist for Victor Valley College, said she
tries to get former foster youth into transitional living programs, but too
often “the answer is, ‘sorry, we’re full, we don’t have
the resources, or he’s not in our county.’ I hear that a
lot.”[93]

It is not simply numbers; geography is also challenging. San
Bernardino County, for example, is some 215 miles wide and 150 miles from north
to south. It is the largest county in the US, with a geographic area greater
than the nine smallest US states combined. In late 2008, 19-year-old Tanya C., a
San Bernardino resident, told Human Rights Watch she would like to be in the
THP-Plus. However, the only program in her county was far from where Tanya lived.
Moving across this county is akin to moving out of state, and she
understandably feared it would jeopardize the fragile community of friends and
supporters she had built in recent years. It would also mean that to continue
with her community college classes she would have to drive 45 minutes to two
hours each way, depending on traffic. Between work and classes, that type of
commute would be daunting, and she doubted her old car would survive so much
wear and tear.[94]

Finally, as the THP-Plus Statewide
Implementation Project recognizes, to be effective, transitional living
programs need to provide more than just shelter. Most young adults need ongoing
support as they navigate through the ups and downs of early adulthood. It is a
time to learn important life skills, something that is especially true for
former foster youth. “Between 18 and 23 years old is a five-year window
of opportunity to help these kids develop the skills needed to be
independent,” says Polly Williams, president of United Friends of the
Children, a program serving over 2,000 current and former foster youth. Its
programs include several transitional living programs with concentrated
supportive services for the residents.[95]

If transitional programs do not provide those important
services and opportunities, they offer little more than a sort of holding
pattern for the young people in the program. For many, it will mean scant
progress toward self-sufficiency. Tony was in foster care from age three until the
time he aged out at 18 years old. He was taken to what he describes as a
halfway house with little supervision or guidance. “No one cared where I
went or what I did,” he told us. Tony was there nine months, and when the
program ended, he had no new adult skills or connections with people who could
help him. He was essentially in the same place he had been nine months earlier,
only now he was on the streets, homeless.[96] Those interviewed who found
themselves homeless after a transitional living program expressed gratitude for
food vouchers and a roof over their head, but felt that much more guidance was
needed for the programs to be meaningful. James, a homeless shelter director,
said, “We sometimes see these programs as a set up for failure.
They’re dumped into an apartment without support. Then when things
don’t work out, it’s their failure and by that time they are not
eligible for additional programs and they’re back with us [at the
homeless emergency shelter.]”[97]

Basic Living Skills Lacking

Being an adult involves a combination of mature cognitive
ability and concrete living skills. Both need practice. Psychologist Marty
Beyer specializes in adolescent development and is a national expert on child
welfare and juvenile justice. She explained that while adult-like thinking
comes with brain maturation, it also improves with practice:

Teenagers are limited in their ability to anticipate
consequences of their actions, they are limited in their ability to plan and
make choices—these are skills to be learned, these are adult thought
processes. We can’t really speed up their ability to plan ahead,
anticipate the consequences of their actions or make choices, but we can walk
them through the process and help them learn and thereby expose them to the
adult thought process, the process of, say, being a good budgeter, a good cook.[98]

Tony put it another way: “If you’re going to put
kids in group homes, in foster care, at least give them what they need to
survive and take care of themselves.”[99]

Nearly every youth interviewed for this report felt that he
or she left foster care without knowledge of basic skills for everyday living.
Raul H. explained, “Kids need to be taught how to cook, how to shop.
Simple, everyday life skills.”[100] When asked about
the causes of their homelessness, interviewees tended to spontaneously list
skills they wish they had been taught, specifically mentioning how to prepare
basic food, apply for a job, shop, budget, understand credit, and know polite
behavior for even simple things, such as how to courteously answer the phone.
“I need to know how to budget, where to look for work, how to apply for
school financial aid,” one young woman listed. “[How to] wash
clothes, cook, clean, know what chemicals you can mix and what you can’t
when you’re cleaning—like ammonia and bleach—I learned that
the hard way when I was cleaning a bathroom.”[101]

A
connection between passing on simple skills and being cared for was linked by
several interviewees, including Nikki B. who told us: “I wish I could
have had ... someone to care about me ... like show me how to separate the
whites from the darks [for laundry.] I would have hated it at the time, but I
wish I’d had that. They never even asked me, ‘Is something wrong?
Talk to me.’”[102]
Sandy’s foster mother made clear that she was a foster parent for the
money, not the experience, Sandy told us. “I’m not into getting to
know you...” her foster mother informed her from the start.
“I’m getting a check. Do what you want, but don’t screw up my
check.” This certainly had emotional effects: “As I got deeper into
the foster care system, I realized I had no love, no family connection in my
life.”But there were other effects, too, when her foster mother
refused to take the time to teach Sandy the same life skills she was teaching
her own daughter. Sandy remembered with sadness scenes from her foster home.
“I watched my foster mom teaching her daughter how to cook, but she never
bothered with me. They looked like they were having fun ... I don’t know
how to cook. [Now] I mostly eat out of a can.”[103]

For youth in care, several things impede what otherwise
would be normal opportunities for hands-on learning experiences. First, foster
homes and parenting tend to be geared to the needs of younger children. Michele
Phannix, a foster parent with 18 years of experience, a mentor, and
parent-partner, told us that specific standards should be set for parents who
are fostering teens. “These are rules that make sense for younger kids.
We’re trying to keep them safe,” she explained, but the rules do
not reflect older youth’s abilities and needs.[104]
For example, regulations about locking up cleaning supplies and leaving a
foster youth alone at home should be modified. Phannix also stated, “There
needs to be more training on teenage issues for foster parents and how to guide
them into becoming functioning adults. Foster parents are not receiving that
kind of training.”[105]
The adults charged with caring for youth in state custody have an important
role to play in passing on basic skills. Their duties should include things
that, says Dr. Beyer, “most parents think should be done for their
children before they go off on their own. It’s similar to what we require
foster parents to do in ... parenting [young children]—feeding, adequate
clothing, haircuts—it is just that there are different tasks for
adolescents.”[106]
Dion, who entered foster care at five years old, believes the system must also
more carefully choose and monitor foster parents. In one of his placements, the
foster parent never reported him missing even though he had run away and was
gone for two weeks, and he certainly was not being taught adult-living skills
while there. In a rather understated conclusion about his experience, he said,
“[t]he foster care system doesn’t pick people who are
qualified.”[107]

For many of the young people interviewed, the state failed
to ensure that foster parents provided teens in their care the kind of basic
living skills that would be passed on in any typical home. Dr. Beyer noted,
“In most homes, parents know it is their responsibility to provide some
amount of training in preparation for adulthood—cooking, cleaning, and in
some homes, driving a car—these are normal expectations in parental
activities. Do foster parents think that because there are ILSP classes, they
are off the hook from having to teach basic skills to teenagers? That’s a
crazy idea. All of these skills require daily input.”[108]

Second, state-run group homes, where a majority of the youth
interviewed had spent time, fail to provide the types of learning that
adolescents need.[109]
Interviewees pointed out that the regimented, institutionalized setting gives
even fewer opportunities to learn and practice adult skills than a foster
family home. Tony was in foster care from age three until 18, and lived in
several group homes during his adolescence: “People in group homes are
paid to watch us. You can’t do anything. It felt like being in daycare.
You have to ask to do things. They treat you like a baby.”[110]
Anya spent a good part of her teenage years in group homes. She was extremely
frustrated by her experience:

While in a group home there were so many things I
couldn’t do. I couldn’t even learn how to ride the bus on my
own—but I had to go to a class that supposedly taught me how to do normal
things. It’s a double standard that doesn’t make sense. It’s
like they’re saying to us, “You must be independent by age 18,”
but then they don’t give us the room to learn to be independent.
Don’t over-shelter us and then tell us to be independent.[111]

The state attempts to instill
proficiency in adult tasks through county-based “Independent Living
Skills” classes, intended to teach subjects such as budgeting,
cooking, and applying for jobs. The length, availability, and type of classes
vary greatly from county to county.

Some of those interviewed said they never attended the
classes nor knew they existed. Others knew of the classes but said they were
unable attend because they lacked transportation or because the classes were
full.[112]
The experiences of the others we spoke to who did attend varied widely. For
example, Darlene H., who attended 18 classes, told us, “they had taught
me some of these things before I left foster care. I knew some stuff before I
left enough so that I didn’t panic. I would have panicked
otherwise.”[113]
Another, Roberta, attended just one life skills class, which she described as a
last-minute cram session of limited utility: “it was one week before
emancipation. They gave us pots and pans, silverware. Taught us how to write a
check ... They gave us a certificate for taking the class and we had pizza and
that was it.”[114]
Describing a positive experience in a non-classroom setting, another
interviewee, Melissa, said she got a lot out of a highly experiential program
called “Independent City.” “You spend the day at a place
where they have the phone company, utilities, a bank, a property management
company, and you get assigned a roommate, a job, a house and then fill out
rental applications, deal with your paycheck coming on a certain date and bills
due ... I learned a lot there.”[115]
Malachi echoed the importance of experiential learning. Looking back, he thinks
the classes he took were not very useful. “They say ‘You should do
this. You should do that.’ ... but it’s like they don’t have
the youth involved. It means you’re not really learning how to do
something.”[116]

No One to Turn to

One
of the most consistent statements from youth interviewed was that they felt no
one really cared what happened to them, before or after emancipation. Interviewees
expressed despair and fear about having no one to turn to after they were
ejected from foster care. Forty-eight of the 63 youth
we interviewed told us they did not have an adult they could turn to in a
crisis, for example, for a ride to the doctor when they were very sick.[117]
Nine said “maybe;” leaving just six of those interviewed answering
“yes.” A young man who asked to be called “Reclusive”
told us, “For the longest time I’ve had no one I can go
to—it’s just easier to be on the streets.”[118]
“I feel like the people who were supposed to help me weren’t there
for me—and I think what’s going to happen to me?” one young
woman said. “Am I going to live on the streets for the rest of my
life?”[119]

There is a growing recognition that becoming a healthy adult
requires connection to and dependence on others. State law requires the county
welfare agency to assist foster children and youth in maintaining relationships
with individuals who are important to the youth. Efforts to locate family
members before emancipation are occurring in some counties. For example, recognizing
that where parents are found to be unfit to care for a child, there may be
other family members who would be willing to be involved in a child or young
person’s life, the California Permanency for Youth Project seeks out
extended family members. As of April 2008, the program was being used in 20
California counties or regions.[120]
Using the internet and other methods employed to connect separated families
following World War II, social workers search for family members who are not
present in a child’s life. The program focuses on foster youth ages 11
and older. “[T]ypically we find between 30 and 80 family members,”
explained Bob Malmberg of Orange County’s Social Services Agency.
“We engage extended family members from across the country—we give
the youth phone cards so they can call new-found family.” The agency
arranges visits, sets up dinner meetings, and even provides plane tickets for
young people to meet extended family. The family may have had no idea where the
child was, and the child may not have known he had family. “We are seeing
amazing results,” Malmberg concluded, citing several cases in which
children’s behavioral problems changed dramatically after being connected
with family. One example was of a boy who had been told he had no family but
apparently did not believe it:

[He] ran [away] from a group home to his former group home;
it’d been closed down. He broke into the building and when he was caught
he was in the office rifling through the file with his records, looking for the
names of family members. We put him in [our family-finding] pilot project, and
we found 25 extended family members. This boy was having a lot of behavioral
problems, with ... 40 incidents a month that involved things like suicide
attempts, assaults on staff, or running away. When we did the family-finding
process with him, the incidents went down to one a month. We brought in family
from out of state and they met with him and told him, “We heard about you
[when you were a baby but then] we were told that you’d been adopted and
we couldn’t contact you. But we never forgot you.” Then we found
that his great-grandparents live in the adjoining county, in Hemet. [We set a
time to meet them but] were a little late getting to the house and when we
arrived, he was confronted with these octogenarians waiting for him on the
driveway. When he went inside they showed him a wall that had birthday cards
they had written to him over the years but not sent because they didn’t know
where he was. They’d been holding the cards for him and there they were,
on the wall collecting dust, waiting for him to show up.[121]

There is a particular vulnerability that comes with being
young and making decisions for the first time. “When a young person is
homeless, those decisions are left unguided or guided by people in similar
circumstances,” Carmichael explained. “So, instead of coming home
and at the dinner table bringing up something, ‘Hey, I am having a fight
with so-and-so’ and getting adult input, they are talking with others who
are in crisis, on the streets, perhaps using drugs. We know how powerful peer
input can be.”[122]

A positive connection with an adult can come in many forms.
Enrique was living in a homeless encampment along the Sacramento River until an
adult took an interest in him and helped him make the decision to go to a
shelter. His experience is an example of how important emotional support can be
for a young adult.

I’m a ladies’ man. I mean, I like taking girls
out. See that ice cream shop there? One week I brought in a different girl
three days in a row. Later, the guy working there said to me,
“You’re slick, aren’t you? I seen you in here with a
different girl every day...” and we started talking. He said, “I
didn’t know you were homeless.” He was surprised.

We’d talk together. He’d ask me questions; he
helped me think about what I want to do in my life. I think I might try to be
an EMT [emergency medical technician]. He encouraged me, helped me think
through what it’d take, look at what classes I would need to take to do
it ... He helped me think about things. He encouraged me to get off the streets
and go to this shelter.[123]

Enrique’s story illustrates how important guidance can
be in early adulthood. Cheryl Alexander, a supervisor in Orange County’s
Emancipation Service Program, noted the importance of relationships and
emotional support even in the absence of more concrete help regarding
homelessness. “Even if you are couch-hopping, if you just have someone
you can call it is so significant to have someone to be there when you need
them.”[124]

Mia S. was 10 years old when her mother died, and 14 when
her father died. By the time she left the foster care system, she had been in
12 foster home placements and two group homes. Not one provided an adult who
cared about her. She began running away when she was 10. “I’d go to
a park and sit on a bench. It wasn’t so much running away as it was
leaving and seeing if anyone cared enough to come find me. I just wanted
someone to care.” While Mia’s placements never produced such a
relationship, as a teen she had the good fortune of entering a creative arts
program in Los Angeles. There she grew close to a staff member who became her
de facto mentor. Ilia Jauregui promised
to stay in her life, and over the years she proved a valuable source of support
for Mia, even letting her stay in her home when she was homeless. Now 20, Mia
still turns to Ilia for advice and guidance. Ilia helped her find a
transitional living program, and Mia recently started classes in business
administration and is working on her high school diploma. “I feel
like a lot of the good choices I’m making are because Ilia is there for
me.”[125]

Foster Youth Need Special Assistance

The difficulty of helping any teenager plan for adulthood
should not be understated. Developmentally, many youth may not be ready to
think about the future, even at age 16 or 17. Miryam Choca, Director of
California Strategies for Casey Family Programs reflected, “I have a
23-year-old daughter. Thinking about talking to a 15-year-old about how
‘you’re going to be on your own in a few years,’ it’s
just not the right time. They’re not ready.”[126]
Lestat, an 18-year-old who was sleeping in a homeless shelter at the time he
was interviewed, echoed her observation. “My social worker did talk with
me [over time] and ask me what I was planning to do when I emancipated. I
didn’t want to think about it. I thought, ‘Jeez, you know, why are
we having these damn conversations? I’m only 16 and it’s so long
before I turn 18.’ And then, oh ... how did time fly so fast?”[127]

Some youth in foster care may be less ready to absorb life
skills than their peers due to special needs. While some are able to make the
transition to adulthood smoothly, many face serious challenges. Research shows
that that youth emancipating from foster care are more likely to have
educational deficits, mental health problems, economic instability, criminal
victimization, and early child-bearing.[128]

Planning for emancipation and support should account for these
special needs. Instead, some transitional programs exclude the youth who need
them the most: youth with mental health problems, juvenile delinquency records,
pregnant youth, or youth with children. “The truth of the matter is that
the kids who qualify for [many transitional programs] are the ones more likely
to succeed anyway,” explains Laura Streimer, the Legal Director for the Alliance for Children’s Rights.[129]
Additionally, pre-emancipation programs are not geared toward special needs, either.

The Effects of Childhood Trauma

Children and youth in foster care may not be ready to learn
independent living skills and plan for the future at the same time as their
peers who have not experienced trauma and extreme disruption. The events that
land a child in foster care can later impede planning and acquisition of
skills: childhood trauma can negatively affect both neurological and
psychosocial development.[130]“The history of trauma often impacts development,” explained
Heather Carmichael, who, as the associate director of a drop-in center for
youth who are homeless, works daily with youth who have experienced childhood
trauma. A history of trauma “can compromise a youth’s readiness or
ability to plan for the future.”[131]

Many
of the young people interviewed for this report had by age 10 lived through
things most adults cannot fathom. At least two watched a parent kill or cause
serious bodily injury to another parent. They experienced rape, beatings by
family members, and emotional abuse that left them blaming themselves for their
families’ disintegration. For some these ordeals did not stop when they
entered state care. Instead, the experience of sexual abuse,

physical harm, and emotional distress continued. Kati R.
described being molested in her placement: “Things happened, traumatic
things, and then before I could deal with it, something else would
happen.”[132]

Lack
of Community Connection for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Youth

“My family rejected me because I am gay,” Blake
T. told Human Rights Watch. “My Dad was abusive—physically [and]
emotionally. I had to go back into this drama [after leaving foster care]. [It
was] a dangerous situation, but I had no place to go.”[133]
Blake’s experience is probably not uncommon.[134]
Youth who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) are at special risk
for homelessness, and may have special needs at emancipation.

The proportion of homeless youth who are LGBT is staggering.
The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force PolicyInstitute and the National
Coalition for the Homeless have concluded that between 20 and 40 percent of all
homeless youth identify as LGBT.[135]
For LGBT youth in the foster care system, the chances of homelessness may be
even greater than for non-LGBT foster youth. “An LGBT youth emancipating
from the child welfare system is apt to have fewer family and community
resources to rely on and so is more likely to end up homeless,” said Jody
Marksamer, staff attorney and Youth Project Director at the National Center for Lesbian Rights. “Some LGBT youth enter into foster care in the first
place because their parents have rejected them for being gay. They face
physical and emotional abuse at home, and sometimes are kicked out of the house
because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.”[136]
Returning to that setting after emancipation is dangerous for some, like Blake.

The National Lesbian and Gay Task Force and the National
Coalition for the Homeless (NLGTF/NCH) recommend a number of steps to address
the LGBT-specific needs of youth who are homeless. The NLGTF/NCH note that
drop-in centers, which can be connected to homeless outreach programs, are
crucial to helping LGBT youth who are homeless. They provide peer-bonding,
recreation, safety, public health, and youth development. The NLGTF/NCH also
recommend that all agencies receiving government funding to serve homeless
youth have nondiscrimination polices and be “culturally competent”
in LGBT youth issues. Individual health and social service providers, too,
should be trained to address the special issues facing youth, including coming
out as LGBT, health and sex education, and community integration.[137]
The effect of a program geared to address his needs is evident to Marvin, who
is 21 and living in transitional living program sponsored in part by the San
Diego LGBT Community Center. The housing program is for youth who have been
homeless, but has a special focus on LGBT youth. “I feel like people care
about me here,” he said.[138]
Without a safe place to turn, though, LGBT youth who have emancipated from
foster care are at high risk for homelessness. “These kids are often the
ones who become homeless because they have no place they are
comfortable,” saidShaun Zigler, Foster Youth Services Program manager for San
Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools Office.[139]

Multiple Moves

“I can’t even count how many [foster]
homes or placements I was in,” said Phillip, who had been in foster care
since he was seven years old. “I think it was between 20 and 25. Age
seven to 13 was really rough,” he told us.[140]
Problems in children’s lives can be compounded when children are moved
from one foster care setting to another. Moving from one foster placement to
another can mean the loss not only of connections with the foster family but also
neighborhood friends, school mates, and teachers. For a child or youth whose
life has already included separation from parents, losing contact with others
is particularly harmful. Research has found that multiple placements are
harmful to children. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, “the
emotional consequences of multiple placements or disruptions are likely to be
harmful at any age.... [M]ultiple moves while in foster care (with the
attendant disruption and uncertainty) can be deleterious to the young
child’s brain growth, mental development, and psychological adjustment.”[141]
Repeatedly the young people interviewed for this report described shutting down
emotionally because of the trauma of moving from place to place[142]
“I was little when I realized, these aren’t my people ... they say
they love you, but it’s all talk,” Matt H. said, describing his
life in 10 group homes and multiple foster family placements before that.
“It’s all for the money. As soon as I did something bad, I was out
of there.” The experience has colored his ability to form relationships:
“To this day I don’t trust people,” he said.[143]
Lestat S. was in three foster homes and seven group homes. He told us,
“I’ve had more than my fair share of broken hearts ... getting
close ... and then being ripped away. You cry your eyes out at night because
you miss them so much.”[144]
By age 18, it had taken an emotional toll.

Rhodes,
the former foster youth who later worked as an emancipation worker, noted that
youth in care are emotionally occupied both with the trauma they have suffered
and fear over the future. “[You’re] in survival mode. You never
know what’s going to happen, what’s going to be pulled out from
under you next. You’re thinking about where you are going to sleep, whether
you’re going to be moved again,” she said.[145]
As a result, by the time former foster youth reach early adulthood, they may be
behind other teens in their readiness to live independently.

Mental Health Problems, Disabilities, and Parenting

Youth in care are more likely to perform poorly in school
and have physical and mental health problems. They are at greater risk for
behavioral problems, drug and alcohol use, and delinquency.[146]
By age 19, nearly half of young women in foster care have been pregnant,
compared to a fifth of their peers not in foster care.[147]
Foster youth with these additional challenges may be especially likely to
need extra help in navigating life on their own.

Significant numbers of children in foster care have mental
health problems: researchers estimate that this is the case for between 40 and
80 percent of children who enter foster care. [148]
Preparation of foster youth for adulthood must take into account a wide
range of mental health needs. Many of the youth interviewed for this report
referenced mental health problems, learning disabilities, and addictions. They
spoke of depression and described suicide attempts. One admitted he was high on
meth at the time of the interview; another described kicking a meth habit.
Kathy Cramer of Berkeley Mental Health and the Mental Health Program Supervisor
for the city of Berkeley noted that the 16- to 25-year-old age group needs
special consideration in terms of how mental health needs are met:

The lack of attention for this age group, it’s been
kind of hidden, in a way. It’s easy to miss if people are not making
themselves known and adolescents and young adults don’t really make their
needs known. In the past we’ve assumed to some degree that this age group
can be served by the adult system. In fact, they need more of an out-reach
approach. They’re just not going to make appointments.[149]

For youth with disabling mental health problems, preparation
for adulthood must include learning how to navigate the systems that serve
people with disabilities and how to live on a limited income. Some young adults
with serious mental health problems need step-by-step assistance with the most
basic of tasks. Karen Grace-Kaho, the California State Foster Care Ombudsman,
told us of a former foster youth who desperately needed assistance but was not
able to get it until she intervened. The young man was sleeping under a freeway
overpass in Los Angeles.

He’d had some contact with [an independent living
program (ILP)]—in fact he had a laptop computer given to him as a part of
that program—and he was sleeping with it there under the freeway. I
called up the ILP coordinator and explained the situation, gave them his name
and all, and the response was, “Oh yeah, we know him. He’s got
mental health problems.” The ILP worker told me, “If he can come
into the office with a signed rental agreement, we may be able to give him
first and last month’s rent.” I said, “Maybe you didn’t
hear me. He’s homeless. He’s sleeping under a freeway overpass.
He’s dirty. He smells. No one is going to let him sign a rental agreement.”

Eventually Grace-Kaho was able to secure the help of a
caseworker who took the young man to a motel to clean up, went with him to buy
a simple set of clothes, and explored transitional living program options.[150]

Learning and other disabilities must be taken in to account
if skill building and planning for life as a young adult are to be effective. A
long-time foster parent told us that in her observation, living skills classes
did not meet the needs of the most vulnerable youth: “It’s really for
kids who are going to college, [and they’re] going to make it anyway ... what’s
needed is some vocational training for the others.”[151]
Another foster parent said, “[The programs don’t] help those who ...
can’t learn to read, to write. [The programs] may look just fine, but
[these kids] are the ones who end up under the bridge. They fall right through
the cracks.”[152]
Additionally, for youth with disabilities, “[m]eeting those goals is only
part of the picture ... additional social, academic, health, and environmental
barriers must also be addressed.”[153]

Mental health problems or disabilities are not the only
special circumstances that need to be taken into account: pregnancy can
disqualify a young person from a program. When Patrice M. was 20, she found out
she was pregnant and received a two-day notice to leave the transitional home
where she lived. The home did not allow pregnant residents. Sitting in a
caseworker’s office, Patrice overheard her worker talking about her on
the phone, saying, “She’s not going to find anyplace.”
Patrice ended up couch-surfing and staying in a motel.[154]

Support Beyond Age 18 is Needed

The
current system of state care for foster youth, ending as

it does at age 18, results far too often and predictably in
homelessness. In order to prevent these outcomes, the extension of care
into the early adult years is critically necessary. As described above,
the population of youth

in state care, far more than children growing up in intact
families, requires special assistance on the path to adulthood. Even
typically developing youth raised in families commonly continue to receive
family support into their 20s; this fully corresponds to what is now known
about adolescent development. Moreover, abrupt termination at 18 of what is
often inadequate care can necessitate costly interventions later. States
that have established routine extension of care beyond 18 have realized not
only gains in well-being, but in their balance sheets as well. Finally,
California must extend care to foster youth beyond the age of 18 because to
avoid doing so would perpetuate a status quo that violates these youths’
civil and economic rights under international law. Only by creating a
varied set of options for assistance before and after eventual emancipation can
the state rectify these violations.

Young Adults Need Support and Guidance

An abrupt end to childhood does not comport with what is now
known about adolescent development or the norms in the US. In a healthy family, preparation for adulthood begins early in life and, in most US families, youth
are not cut off entirely at age 18.Instead families continue to provide
emotional and financial support as young people move through early adulthood.

The number of 20- and 30-year-olds in the US who are
completely financially independent has decreased significantly over the last
century and especially since 1960.[155]
A shift has taken place: it takes more to become financially independent than
it did a generation ago.

The University of Michigan Institute for Social Research
found that just 41 percent of 26-year-olds are financially autonomous, with all
their financial resources supplied by either themselves or by a spouse.[156]
In the average US family, financial assistance often continues into the early
30s. Although there are substantial differences in the amount of material
support that young adults receive from families, on average parents provide
roughly $2,200 each year to children from ages 18 to 34 (on average more in the
late teens and 20’s and less in the early 30’s), for an average
total amount of more than $35,000.[157]
The assistance may come in the form of housing, food, educational expenses, or
direct cash assistance.[158]
In California, 45 percent of males and 43 percent of females ages 18 to 24 live
with their parents.[159]
Ashley, a former foster youth spoke on a panel sponsored by UCLA’s School of Public Affairs about aging out. In response to a question asking for her thoughts
on a bill to extend foster care past age 18 she said, “I think it’s
really great because nobody puts their real kid out at 18. It’s being
realistic.”[160]

“Out at 18” is a Costly State Policy

State policies and practices that eject young people from
state care without the tools they need to survive are not only devastating to
the individual, they are also costly to society. Some US states already
recognize this and extend support to foster youth beyond age 18. A University
of Chicago study examining the effect of extending foster care to age 21 found
that in Illinois, where the median age of exit from foster care is 21, the
benefits of more time and more help are tremendous. Compared to outcomes for
youth in states that do not extend care past age 18, the researchers concluded
that youth remaining in care until age 21 were three times more likely to
enroll in college, 65 percent less likely to be arrested, and 38 percent less
likely to get pregnant as teenagers.[161]
The long-term affect for the state is significant. A report released in early
2009 found that in California, supporting former foster youth up to age 21 was
likely to increase their lifetime earning potential by at least $92,000.[162]

Other, perhaps less obvious, costs can fall to the state
when young people who are not ready to care for themselves end up on the
street. In particular, the cost of not addressing the special needs of former
foster youth may be high. For example, Ombudsman Grace-Keho’s description
of a young man living beneath the freeway underpass included: “This kid
was asthmatic, and during this time he had a bad asthma attack and ended up
hospitalized. Now how healthy is it for someone with asthma sleeping under a
freeway pass in Los Angeles [and exposed to intense pollution]? And how long
could have the state paid for his room and board with the money it spent on an
emergency room visit and a week-long stay in the hospital?”[163]

The Rights of Current and Former Foster Children
under International Law

Foster Children Have a Right to Special Measures of State Protection

Every child in California is guaranteed special measures of
protection and care by international law. Protections are heightened for
children who have been removed from their homes and placed in state care. The
state has special duties toward these children, among which is to help them
prepare for adulthood.[164]
It is no exaggeration to say that all of childhood and youth is dedicated to
learning to be independent. The role of the parent in this process is
essential. When the state becomes the parent, it must take measures to prepare
children for adulthood or it is breeching its duty to protect.

International law recognizes that children need greater
protection than adults.[165]
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) states that
“[e]very child shall have ... the right to such measures of protection as
are required by his status as a minor, on the part of his family, society and
the State.”[166]
To understand the scope of this provision, the ICCPR should be read in
conjunction with the Convention on the Rights of the Child, a treaty that the United States has signed but not ratified.[167]
Reflecting an almost universal consensus on children’s human rights, the
convention requires states to protect children from “all forms of
physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment,
maltreatment or exploitation, including sexual abuse, while in the care of
parent(s), legal guardian(s) or any other person who has the care of the
child.”[168]
The best interests of the child must be a primary consideration in all actions
concerning children.[169]

The specific measures of protection are left somewhat to
each state’s discretion. The UN Human Rights Committee, which interprets
the ICCPR, and to which each signatory country must regularly make reports on
adherence to its provisions, articulates that each state must “determine
[its measures of protection] in light of the protection needs of children ... within
its jurisdiction.”[170]
Despite this wide latitude, it is clear that protection of children means more
than just safety, more than adequate food. The preamble of the Convention on
the Rights of the Child speaks directly to the importance of preparation for
adulthood, stating that “the child should be fully prepared to live an individual
life in society.”[171]
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child also notes “with
concern” that states “have not given sufficient attention to the
specific concerns of adolescents as rights holders and to promoting their
health and development.”[172]
The Committee describes states’ obligations to include ensuring that
adolescents have “access to information that is essential for their
health and development” and “creat[ing] a safe and supportive
environment for adolescents including within their family, in schools, in all
types of institutions in which they may live, within their workplace and/or in
the society at large.”[173]

Children outside of their family environment are among those
singled out as entitled to special care and protection from the state. The Convention
on the Rights of the Child provides that:

A child temporarily or permanently deprived of his or her
family environment, or in whose own best interests cannot be allowed to remain
in that environment, shall be entitled to special protection and assistance
provided by the State.[174]

The Human Rights Committee lays out the expectation that
states’ reports “should provide information on the special measures
of protection adopted to protect children who are abandoned or deprived of
their family environment in order to enable them to develop in
conditions that most closely resemble those characterizing the family
environment.”[175]

All People Have a Right to Adequate Housing

Many international treaties and documents enunciate a right
to adequate housing for all people.[176]
The first was the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR):

[E]veryone has the right to a standard of living adequate
for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food,
clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right
to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old
age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.[177]

The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights (ICESCR), which the US has signed but not ratified, codifies the right
and requires ratifying states to strive to ensure that all their residents have
adequate housing, recognizing “the right of everyone to an adequate
standard of living for himself and his family, including adequate food,
clothing and housing, and to the continuous improvement of living
conditions."[178]
The ICESCR also requires states parties to take "appropriate steps to
ensure the realization of this right."[179]

If the right to housing means anything, it means that one
should not have to be homeless. It also means, at a minimum, that governments
should avoid policies and practices that predictably increase homelessness.[180]
Rajindar Sachar, the U.N. special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing,
has noted that governments infringe that right if they adopt policies that
"result in homelessness, greater levels of inadequate housing, [or] the
inability of persons to pay for housing[.]"[181]
The government’s failure to prepare children in care for adulthood
directly increases the incidence of homelessness among emancipated youth.

A Variety of Post-Emancipation Options is Needed

Foster youth, just like their peers in typical homes, need a
variety

of options as they transition into adults. Some need more
time at home before moving out on their own: Tayana said she was not ready to
leave her foster home when she turned 18 and probably would have chosen to stay
with her foster mother.[182]
Others need periodic stays: Melissa said she needed a place she could go on
breaks from college. Warren had a job when he was kicked out of his group home,
and said he could have paid a small amount of rent. Ayana had a daughter and
needed a place that was child-friendly. Oceania said she needed a safe place to
stay while she applied for SSI disability coverage, and someone to help her
learn to balance navigating that disability benefits system, dealing with her
mental health issues, and starting community college. Michael needed a program
that included drug treatment. The many youth who return to their birth families
when they age out need help finding family members and determining who they
might turn to.

The question is not just what happens when young people turn
18. Some want nothing more than to leave the foster care system behind on their
18th birthday, but need the option of returning to some type of
supportive setting in a crisis. Young people need back up plans as they
navigate through early adulthood and face the inevitable mistakes that are a
part of learning. Murray L. said he passed up a chance to enter into a
transitional living program when he left care: “I regret [that decision,
but] I wanted to be with my family. I thought they wanted me with them but I
got kicked out.”[183]
Anya entered a transitional living home, but was kicked out for breaking the
rules and had nowhere to go. Junior J. had a part-time job at a Safeway grocery
store when he emancipated, but four months later he had lost it and had no
income.[184]
Each of them needed a safety net to catch them and keep them from becoming
homeless when things did not go as planned.

Transitional
living programs are the best option for some. However, requirements for
programs need to be adapted to special needs. For example, a program
requirement that an applicant hold a job may unfairly exclude those who are
unable to do so. While maintaining a job is an obvious objective for most
adults, some of those interviewed appeared to have significant learning
disabilities or to be experiencing mental health problems to such a degree that
immediate entry into the work world and steady employment seemed improbable.
One young woman interviewed appeared, at minimum, to be quite socially immature
and depressed. She had never held a job before emancipating. She told the
researcher that she did not even apply to a local transitional living program
because she thought she would not be able to get a job.[185]
Another young woman was obviously and significantly cognitively impaired: in
describing her graduation day for the researcher, she could not count the
number of hours between her high school graduation and the time that same
afternoon that her social worker came to drive her to a temporary shelter.[186]
At the time of the interview, she was living in a homeless shelter, hoping to
get into a transitional living program. She did not have the requisite job for
admittance, however, and could not articulate a plan to get a job. Cheryl
Alexander, supervisor of the Emancipation Services Program of Orange County
Social Services Agency said: “Our kids want to go to school, they want to
do right in our communities. But when you’re worried about where
you’re going to lay your head every night ... you can’t do
everything.”[187]

Leaving Homelessness
Behind

Warren’s Success

When he
turned 18, adulthood came as an abrupt announcement for Warren.[188] “The guy at [my] group home
told me on a Wednesday that I needed to get out by Saturday.” With
that, 18-year-old Warren was tossed out of foster care. “I tried to
tell him that I had no place to go, but he told me that I couldn’t stay
there ... I asked, ‘Couldn’t I [just] stay in the
garage?’” The answer was no. Warren packed his possessions into
his car and left.

He was homeless for two years. “I’d
park [my car] different places and sleep. Sometimes I would stay at
friends’ houses,” he said. Remarkably, he continued to work
toward his high school diploma and regularly attended classes. “I
didn’t want to give up. My motivation was to be better. I was trying to
show people that I could do things that they didn’t think I could
do.” He worked in a restaurant and used the money to pay for his car. It’s
a time that he doesn’t like to think about: “I got to a point
where I was so depressed, so frustrated, I felt like killing myself.”

The chance
for a place to live and the emotional support to make it as a young adult
came when he was twenty. “I was so desperate. I don’t know how I
heard about [a transitional living program] ... but I did, and somehow I got
an application and brought it over to their office. I thought I would never
hear back from them.” He did, and after a rigorous acceptance process,
he was off the streets and into an apartment with a roommate.

The
program was not an easy ride—at one point he lost his job and did not
have enough money to pay both rent and his car payment. He chose the car.
“I thought to myself, I gotta keep this car. If everything goes wrong,
I can sleep in my car.” Not being able to pay rent jeopardized his
placement in the program, but instead of booting him, a counselor worked with
him to re-focus priorities and find another job.

Those kind
of second chances are part of what helped him become the successful
independent adult he is today. Warren also points to the relationships built
in the program. “The [staff at the transitional living program] let me
know they were here for me, they let me know that they knew I was trying to
do something in my life and they supported me in it. It seems like they
really care about what happens to you. And, when
bad things happened—like when I lost that job, they would make sure
that I was out there looking for another job. They always have some ideas
about work.” He spent 18 months at the program.

Living on
his own in Long Beach, Warren said he was working and going to school. For the two years before up until
we spoke with him, he had worked with a company that maintained a number of
apartment buildings across the county. With shy pride he clicked off the
skills he is mastering, “I’ve learned carpentry, plumbing, and
electrical work.” Walking through an apartment unit, he showed the
interviewer perfectly mitered crown molding, expert drywall work and
professional painting he’d done himself. “See that air
conditioning unit? I installed it.”

Warren’s
boss, Tony Suarez, said he thought highly of him: “In the beginning I
was kind of surprised about what he’s been through, the problems
he’s had ... But he’s been great. He likes to be there for
people.” The relationship has been a meaningful one for both. Mr.
Suarez described a call he got from Warren last Christmas. “[He said]
thank you for everything I’d done for him. He told me that I was like a
big brother to him—he really meant it. No one had ever told me
something like that—It made me feel so great. I’m on my own too,
but I have parents—it’s just different when you don’t have
anyone.”[189]

In
addition to working full-time, Warren was attending community college.
“Right now I am taking care of my general education requirements. I
hope that by the middle of this year I’ll be able to go full-time.
I’d like to work with kids. I’m thinking about becoming a teacher
or a child psychologist. I’m focusing on finding something that I know
I’ll be good at.”

On the
weekends he played volleyball and was also a member of a car club.
“It’s a Mustang owners’ club. We meet for barbeques and
stuff. I do some mechanical work on cars, I help people out with their cars
and fix things.”

Friends
would tell him it is time to start a family. He disagreed. “I have
things I want to do before I have kids. I’d like to travel, go to
different places in the world. But when I do have kids, I think I’ll
adopt. I think about how there are so many kids out there without a mom or a
dad.”

It was
hard to imagine this young man living in a car. His journey from homelessness
to a stable life of work, school, and weekends playing volleyball happened
because simple needs were met: A place to live, emotional support, second
chances, and relationships with people who care. Those factors gave him what
he needed. Warren said he was not stopping. He dreamed about traveling, plans
for future careers, and family options. He summed up his life, “I want
to see how far I can go.”

Anya’s Success

Plowing
through eight placements in less than five years, Anya thought leaving foster
care was like the end of a bad dream.[190] Instead, what came next was a real
nightmare. “I was homeless for two and a half years, living in motels
and in my car ... At one point I was living in my car ... in the winter. I
was freezing with my baby there with me ... She’d sleep sitting up in
her car seat. “

Anya recalls one desperate night
trying to get to a homeless shelter in Orange County. Driving along I-5, she
tensely watched the gas gauge move to empty. “I didn’t think we
would make it to the shelter.” In the back seat her three-year-old
daughter squealed with joy as they passed Disneyland’s fireworks
lighting the sky next to the freeway. They made it to the shelter, but it was
overcrowded, with sleeping mats jammed together on the floor inside, and even
the yard filled with people sleeping outside. Anya felt safer parking the car
in the alley and staying there with her child. Sitting behind the steering
wheel, she said, she cried all night. She thought, “I can’t do
this anymore.”

She had
tried a number of programs but with no luck. Even reaching them was
difficult. “Most places you call don’t answer the
phone—it’s just a message or no one picks up.” The next day
she had some luck. “When an actual person picked up the phone, I
couldn’t talk, I just cried into the phone.” Ultimately she was
accepted into a transitional living program. “I remember [the call
saying that] I got in [to the program] ... my heart raced. I said, ‘Are
you kidding? Are you kidding?!’”

“December
9th [was] my move-in day. They asked if I needed help moving my
stuff, and [laughing] well, no, I didn’t; it all fit in my car ... I
got there, and they took me to my apartment and I went in and I just sat on
the bed. I was so happy to have a room ... I was so happy I couldn’t
move for an hour. I just sat there. Finally, after everything, I had a place
I could stay.”

Anya threw
herself in to working and going to school. She got a job with a mortgage
company and worked from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., then drove over an hour to a
community college and took night classes until 10. “I was never at
home, I never saw [my daughter], because I was so scared about being homeless
again. I missed out on the program here [at the transitional living
program.]” Her counselor called her in for a heart-to-heart. “She said, ‘You’re disappointing me,’
and let me know I needed to participate in the program. I didn’t
realize she didn’t want me to just work; she wanted me to leave [the
program] with connections, with a family, because that is what I was
missing.” The counselor also helped Anya focus on her priorities.
“She told me, ‘You know you are taking time away from your
daughter.’ I told her, ‘No, I am doing all of this for
her!’ She told me that I am missing special time with her and I
won’t be able to make it up later—and I realized she was right, I
couldn’t keep working and going to school the way I was.” Anya
quit work but with the help of program staff was able to secure a paying
internship. “I work in the Motion Picture Development Finance Department at
Paramount.” There she gained a mentor who introduced her to accounting.

When we
spoke with her, Anya attended school full-time and worked two days a week.
There were dance classes for her daughter on Saturdays. “It’s the
best situation ever,” she says. “My hope is to go to a four-year
college this year or the following year. I’m thinking about USC, UCLA,
or Cal State Northridge. But wherever I go, I’m going to
go—I’m going to a four-year college to get my degree. I’m
really focused [on getting] through school.” Others have recognized her
efforts and how far she has come: she was awarded a scholarship.

You do not
have to spend much time with Anya to get a sense of her determination. She is
energetic, exudes confidence and laughs easily. She is the picture of
optimistic young adulthood. What separates her from the young person who was
homeless for two-and-a-half years? Anya’s answer is the guidance and
supportive relationships she has at her transitional living program. She
gives a clear example: “I used to always run out of gas. Here, at this
program they don’t yell at you, and they don’t just give you
money for gas. The counselor helps me figure out how to budget, so next time
I’ll have the money for gas and not run out. It makes me feel like here
there are people who really care about me.”

When she
thinks about the future, she’s clear. “My dream for where I will
be in 10 years? I’ll be an accountant. I’ll have my own office;
my name will be on the door. I’ll have an intern and I’ll be
helping that person. Most importantly I will be helping others. People tell
me now, ‘You’re going to be successful, you’re going to be
doing something big.’ I hear that and I think, ‘Yes, I
am.’”

Detailed Recommendations

1. Extend support for youth in foster care beyond
age 18.

Transition to adulthood should be more gradual than it
currently is for youth in foster care. Few 18-year-olds are ready to be
completely independent. Financial support, adult connection, shelter, and other
safety nets should be provided in a graduated way into the early 20s for youth
who need it. Youth who choose to leave state care at age 18 should have
opportunities to return on the basis of need. We recommend:

To the Governor and Members of the State
Legislature

Support state legislation that creates
multiple options of support past age 18 for youth, including:

allowing all former foster youth to stay in a current foster
care placement for a period of time past age 18, regardless of their high
school graduation or other status;

creating a diverse spectrum of other options for housing,
support, and guidance; and

developing transitional housing and other programs that meet the
needs of a wider spectrum of young adults, including those with mental health
needs, learning disabilities, and pregnant and parenting youth.

Increase the availability across the state
of transitional living programs so that every youth leaving state care who
needs housing will have it.

Provide the right to return to state care
for youth who chose to leave at age 18 but who later find that they need
support and help in early adulthood.

To Judges, Attorneys, and Child Advocates

Use existing
laws to extend jurisdiction after age 18 in appropriate cases.

To County Child Welfare Agencies and Social Workers

Prioritize resources for proven transitional
living programs that provide meaningful life skills acquisition, guidance to
youth traversing early adulthood, and strong bonds with competent, caring
adults.

Set standards for and regulate adherence by
transitional living programs and foster placements in the provision of on-going
guidance, emotional support, and the opportunity to learn living skills.

To the Federal Government

The US
Department of Health and Human Services should promulgate regulations for
the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008that permit for the widest possible spectrum of independent living
programs.

The US Department of Health and
Human Services should revise the eligibility requirements under the Fostering
Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008 to broadly
interpret the eligibility of youth who have mental or emotional problems
for medical waivers that would permit them to enter transitional living
programs when they cannot meet program requirements for employment or
school.

2. Guarantee that youth have useful emancipation
plans.

Legally-mandated “transitional independent living
plans,” which child welfare agencies are required to develop for each
youth’s emancipation, should incorporate concrete arrangements for
housing, income, connection to others, and medical coverage. We recommend:

To the Governor and State Legislature

Ensure that existing lawsrequiring
transitional living plans are being implemented and are effective.

To Judges, Attorneys, and Child Advocates

Inquire and
follow up at regular intervals on the status of plans for a youth’s
emancipation.

Identify children and youth in
foster care who have special needs, ensure that their post-emancipation
plans address those needs, and take steps to ensure their needs are met.

To County Child Welfare Agencies and Social Workers

Ensure that
every youth emancipating has a place to live, a source of income, and
health coverage prior to emancipation.

Guarantee
that every youth leaving care has an independent living coordinator and
knows how to reach that person.

Evaluate
systems and procedures to ensure that the perspectives of children and
youth are incorporated in planning and assist them in identifying their
goals.

Work closely
with youth to complete the Independent Living Plan, beginning in early
adolescence and continuing until the youth leaves care; involve people who
care about the youth and can assist him or her in developing the plan; and
allow sufficient time to discuss and take action on the youth’s
goals.

Provide more information about
services, programs, and support that exist post-emancipation.

3. Create real opportunities to develop skills for
independence.

Everyday life skills should be taught in foster care at an
earlier age and not just in a classroom setting. Youth should be provided
opportunities throughout adolescence to practice tasks and skills for
adulthood.

To the Governor and State Legislature

Review state
laws and regulations, and support regulatory changes, or if necessary,
legislation so that youth in foster care are not living in overly
restrictive and institutionalized settings that limit opportunities for
experiential learning.

Support regulatory or legislative
changes so that foster parents, group home workers, and others caring for
adolescents must create opportunities to learn adult living skills in the
home.

To Judges, Attorneys, and Child Advocates

In
preparation for and during court hearings, ask specifically about the
types of opportunities individual youth in state care will receive for
learning adult living skills, and follow up with court investigations or
orders to ensure youth are getting the opportunities needed.

To County Child Welfare Agencies and Social Workers

Assess
current skill-building programs and preparation for transition to adulthood
policies and outcomes for youth. Assessments should rely on, among other
things, information from the National Youth in Transition Database and
input from former foster youth and other experts.

Train foster
parents, group home workers, and others caring for adolescents on
adolescent development and the basic skills needed for youth to prepare
for adulthood; set standards for foster parents, group home workers, and
others caring for adolescents holding caretakers responsible in part for
passing on adult living skills and providing in-home skills acquisition.

Prioritize in training and
standards experiential learning of adult skills and opportunities to
learn.

To Foster Parents, Group Home Workers, Guardians,
and Others Caring for Children in Foster Care

Ensure that young
people have ongoing opportunities to participate in activities that
promote adult skills.

Prepare
adolescents for adulthood and ask for support from the county welfare
agency.

Seek training in adolescent
development and creative ways to impart living skills.

4. Help establish relationships that extend beyond
emancipation.

To prepare youth in foster care for adulthood, the state
should help them establish relationships with people who can offer guidance and
support through early adulthood. We recommend:

To the Governor and State Legislature

Ensure that existing laws
supporting long-term relationships for children and youth in foster care,
such as family-finding, long-term mentoring, and adoption of older youth,
are being implemented.

To Judges, Attorneys, and Child Advocates

Ensure through court orders and
follow-up that every child and youth has connections with adults who are
likely be in his or her life after leaving foster care.

To County Child Welfare Agencies and Social Workers

Prioritize
resources to ensure that every child in state care establishes connections
with adults who will be available to him or her after emancipation from
care.

Create systems to contact and
maintain connection with extended family and non-family members who may
not be able to house a child but could commit to be in a child’s
life in ways that build emotional support and ties to the community.

To Foster Parents, Group Home Workers, Guardians,
and Others Caring for Children in Foster Care

Prioritize the
creation of opportunities for children and youth to establish long-term,
caring relationships.

Change group home policies and
procedures so that children and youth have more access to people in the
community and opportunities to pursue typical adolescent activities that
build connections to adults and other youth outside of the system.

Research Methods

This research is based primarily on 63 interviews of young
people between the ages of 17 and 24 who were former foster children. Interviews
took place in 2006 through 2010. Most of the interviewees were homeless at the
time of the interview; others had been recently homeless. The definition of
“homeless” used here is the one given in the McKinney-Vento
Homeless Assistance Act:

(i) children and youth who are
sharing the housing of other persons due to loss of housing, economic hardship,
or a similar reason; are living in motels, hotels, trailer parks, or camping
grounds due to the lack of alternative adequate accommodations; are living in
emergency or transitional shelters; are abandoned in hospitals; or are awaiting
foster care placement;

(ii) children and youth who have
a primary nighttime residence that is a public or private place not designed
for or ordinarily used as a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings
(within the meaning of section 103(a)(2)(C));

(iii) children and youth who are
living in cars, parks, public spaces, abandoned buildings, substandard housing,
bus or train stations, or similar settings; and

Youth interviewed for this report said they slept in cars,
on the streets, in parks, under bridges, in abandoned buildings, temporarily in
motels, in homeless shelters, in the homes of friends (“couch
surfing”), living temporarily with people they did not trust, with people
paying them for sex, and in tents.

The interviewees came from geographically diverse locations
across California. While not specifically asked to list where they had grown
up, interviewees sometimes referred to towns and cities where they lived in
foster care. These included Anaheim, Apple Valley, Bakersfield, Berkeley,
Cabrillo, Carson, Citrus Grove, Compton, Covelo-Round Valley, Eureka, Fresno,
Fort Bragg, Hayworth, Hollywood, Lancaster, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Oakland,
Ontario, Orland, Palm Desert, Palm Springs, Palo Verdes, Paris, Pasadena,
Pomona, Rancho Cucamonga, Rosemead, Sacramento, San Bernardino, San Diego, San
Francisco, the San Fernando Valley, Santa Rosa, Tujunga, Ukiah, Upland,
Victorville, Whittier, and Yucaipa. This is not a full list. Some interviewees
did not say where they had lived; others gave the names of group homes instead
of towns. It was not uncommon for an interviewee to state that he or she could
not remember all the places he or she had lived in foster care. All youth
interviewees had been in foster care; some had also been in the juvenile
justice systems and under the jurisdiction of the probation department.

Interviewees were found through several methods. In some
cases, the researcher made an announcement at a location where homeless youth
were gathered, such as in a dayroom of a drop-in center or at a meeting for
residents at a shelter. Individuals would come forward and sign up to be
interviewed. In other cases staff at a shelter suggested specific individuals
to be interviewed because they were known to have been in foster care and were
currently homeless. In one case a person who was allowing a homeless youth to
sleep on her floor at home called Human Rights Watch. A few contacted our
offices after seeing a request posted on the California Youth Connection
listserv.

Nearly all interviews of youth were face-to-face. Interviews
were held in a private location such as an office, or a place where others
could not hear the conversation. Interviews took place in homeless shelters,
drop-in centers, transitional living houses, on the streets of Hollywood, and in a homeless encampment along a river about a mile from the State capitol
building.

Interviews lasted from around 30 minutes to three hours and
were conducted in a narrative style. The researcher described the focus of the
research and explained the measures that would be used to maintain
confidentiality. General, open-ended questions were asked. The researcher took
careful notes. In some cases the researcher read back quotes to the interviewee
to ensure exact wording.

Interviewees were given the option to have their interviews
used directly or indirectly, with the latter meaning that their exact quotes
would not be used so that their identity would be completely shielded. All
interviewees chose to have their information used directly. Pseudonyms were
used because of the personal nature of youths’ experiences, their young
age at the time of the interview, and the fact that many were in crisis at the
time and may not have been in a position to adequately analyze the consequences
of revealing private information to a wide audience. Some interviewees chose
their own pseudonyms; for others, the researcher chose a pseudonym. In some
cases, in addition to the use of pseudonyms, other identifying factors such as
gender, geography, age, the existence of children, siblings or the specific
facts of an incident are left out in order to further conceal the
individual’s identity. This was done when the facts of a situation were
particularly personal or potentially endangering. For example, particular care
has been taken to shield the identity of an interviewee who described having
been raped as a child.

Four Indicators of Minimal Readiness for Independence

While the interviews were generally narrative in nature, the
researcher asked four specific questions of each individual. These questions
were chosen as indicators of the most minimal preparation for adulthood and
readiness for independence. The four questions were:

When you left foster care did you have a source of income?

When you left foster care did you have medical coverage?

When you left foster care did you have a high school
diploma?

When you left foster care did you have an adult you could
turn to if you were in some kind of crisis, for example, needing a ride to
the doctor if you were very sick?

All interviews were deeply personal. Interviewees were asked
to talk about experiences of trauma, betrayal, and abandonment by family and
the system. The fact of their homelessness was an obvious source of shame for
many, and some even blamed themselves for being in foster care, such as,
“I was a stubborn child, that’s why no one wanted me.”

Many interviewees expressed that even though the topics were
difficult to discuss, they wanted to talk about their experiences because they wanted
to help change things for children who come up in the system after them. Mason
B. put it this way: “I’m down for any cause to help improve things.
Even if I’m not going to see help for me, maybe it will help others
coming along.”[192]

Acknowledgements

This report was written and researched by Elizabeth Calvin, senior
advocate, Children’s Rights Division of Human Rights Watch. Kennji Kizuka
and Kyle Knight, associates for Children’s Rights Division, provided
significant research, administrative, and other help. Ruchika Budhraja, an
intern with Human Rights Watch in Los Angeles, provided substantial help in
research and other support for the report.

We thank the many young people who shared their experiences
for this report.

Zama Coursen-Neff, deputy director, and Lois Whitman, director of the Children’s Rights Division of Human Rights Watch edited the
report. David Fathi, director of the US Program and Scott Long, director of the
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights Program of Human Rights Watch
reviewed the report. Cassandra Cavanaugh, consultant to the Program
office, Andrew Mawson, deputy program director, and Aisling Reidy, senior legal
advisor, provided legal and program review.

[1] The
Children’s Rights Division of Human Rights Watch uses the word
“children” to mean people under the age of 18. The words
“teenager” and “teen” refer to individuals who are 13
to 19 years old. The word “youth” and term “young
people” are used in this report to mean people in adolescence through
early adulthood, or approximately ages 12 through 24.

[2] AFCARS Data,
Children's Bureau, Administration for Children and Families, US Department of
Health and Human Services, “Trends in Foster Care and Adoption –FY
2006—FY 2007,”
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/stats_research/afcars/trends.htm (accessed
August 7, 2009). An individual child is included in the count for each
year for which he or she is in foster care on the last day. Note that this
number is an estimated count of all the children in foster care on the last day
of the year, and that in fact, many more children pass through the foster care
system in a year. The estimated count of all children who were in the public
foster care system during the year was 783,000 for FY 2006-FY 2007. That number
is the sum of two mutually exclusive groups of children: the children who are
already in care on the first day of the fiscal year (October 1) and the
children who enter foster care during the year. An individual child is counted
only once for each year.

[3] Barbara Needell et
al., University of California at Berkeley Center for Social Services Research,
Child Welfare Services Reports for California, CWS/CMS 2009 Quarter 1
Extract, “Child Population (0-17), Number in Care, and Prevalence
Rates,” July 1, 2008, http://cssr.berkeley.edu/ucb_childwelfare/InCareRates.aspx
(accessed October 7, 2009). California’s system dwarfs all others in the
nation. For example, Texas and New York’s foster care populations, the
second and third largest in the nation, are significantly smaller, each with
around 30,000 children and youth in their state systems. United States
Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and
Families, “Foster Care FY2002 - FY2006 Entries, Exits, and Numbers of
Children In Care on the Last Day of Each Federal Fiscal Year,” reflecting
state data submitted to the Children's Bureau as of June 2008,
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/stats_research/afcars/statistics/entryexit2006.htm
(accessed March 4, 2009). New York had, at the time of the 2000 census, close
to 4.7 million residents under the age of 18. In that year, some 5.9 million
children and youth under the age of 18 resided in Texas. California’s
population of children and youth was about 9.2 million. United States Census,
“Age: 2000,” October 2001, http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/c2kbr01-12.pdf
(accessed August 4, 2009).

[5]
Diane Reed and Kate. Karpilow, California Center for Research on Women and Families,“Understanding the Child Welfare System in California: A Primer for
Service Providers and Policymakers,” 2nd Ed., June 2009, http://www.ccrwf.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/final_web_pdf.pdf
(accessed September 14, 2009), pp. 11-14. In the last 10 years, child welfare
systems have gone through significant changes. In 1997, the federal Adoption and
Safe Families Act (ASFA) (PL 105-89) was enacted. In order to receive federal
funding, states are required to collect data on outcome measures and go through
a federal review process. California’s first review was in 2002, and it was
found to be out of substantial conformity in seven of seven outcome measures. The
state created an improvement plan, and was in 2005 found to have met all but
one of its improvememt goals based on the second review. A second review was conducted
in 2008, and at this writing the state was waiting for the finalization of its
improvement plan from the federal Department of Health and Human Services.
Ibid., p. 5.

[6]
Barbara Needell et al., University of California at Berkeley Center for Social
Services Research, Child Welfare Services Reports for California, CWS/CMS 2009
Quarter 1 Extract, “California Child Population (0-17) and Children with
Child Maltreatment Allegations, Substantiations, and Entries,” January 1,
2008 to December 31, 2008, http://cssr.berkeley.edu/ucb_childwelfare/RefRates.aspx
(accessed October 7, 2009). In California in 2008, 486,866 children were
referred one or more times. Of those referrals, 97,220 children’s cases
were substantiated. 37,753 children entered foster care that year. Some cases
are substantiated as involving abuse or neglect but it is determined that the
child can safely return home if the parents or guardians are provided services.

[7]
The majority of those not residing with foster families, in group homes, or
institutions have been placed by the court in the home of a relative (see
discussion below). The remaining children and youth have been placed in
guardianships, pre-adoption settings, “trial home visits,” or have
run away.

[8]
National data is from US Department of Health and Human Services,
Administration for Children and Families, Administration on Children, Youth and
Families, Children's Bureau, “The AFCARS Report: Preliminary FY 2006
Estimates as of January 2008 (14),” http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/stats_research/afcars/tar/report14.htm
(accessed February 26, 2009). Note that the national data is for the year 2006.
State data is from Barbara Needell et al., University of California at Berkeley
Center for Social Services Research, Child Welfare Services Reports for
California, CWS/CMS 2009 Quarter 1 Extract, Extract, “Children in
Foster Care, Agency Type=Child Welfare,” April 2009,
http://cssr.berkeley.edu/ucb_childwelfare/PIT.aspx (accessed October 7, 2009).

[9]
Ibid. In California, 13.65 percent of 11-to 17-year-olds in state care
reside in group homes.

[10]
Barbara Needell et al., University of California at Berkeley Center for Social
Services Research, Child Welfare Services Reports for California, CWS/CMS 2009
Quarter 1 Extract, “Children in Child Welfare Supervised Foster Care as
of January 1, 2008 and January 1, 1998(Age 0-20), by Placement
Type,” http://cssr.berkeley.edu/ucb_childwelfare/PIT.aspx (accessed October
7, 2009). The year 1998 was chosen because it was the earliest year for which
data was readily available.

[11]
For an overview of California’s child welfare system, see Diane Reed and
Kate Karpilow, California Center for Research on Women and Families, “Understanding
the Child Welfare System in California: A Primer for Service Providers and
Policymakers,” 2nd Ed., June 2009, http://www.ccrwf.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/final_web_pdf.pdf
(accessed September 14, 2009) and Lisa K. Foster, California Research Bureau,
California State Library, “Foster Care Fundamentals: An Overview of California’s
Foster Care System,” December 2001,
http://www.library.ca.gov/crb/01/08/01-008.pdf (accessed August 11, 2009).

[16]Barbara
Needell et al., University of California at Berkeley Center for Social Services
Research, “Youth Emancipating from Foster Care in California: Findings
Using Linked Administrative Data,” May 2002,http://cssr.berkeley.edu/pdfs/ffy_entire.pdf
(accessed August 1, 2009), p. 21. Data provided by the University of California
at Berkeley Center for Social Services Research do not disaggregate
emancipation rates for youth between the ages of 18 to 20; however, analysis
conducted in 2002 of youth who entered the child welfare system between 1991
and 1997 determined that 72 percent of youth emancipated at age 18, 13 percent
were older than 18 at emancipation, and 15 percent emancipated younger than age
18.

[21]
Miriam Krinsky, statement to the Los Angeles County Bar Association Juvenile
Courts Task Force, March 3, 2009. Krinksy is the former Executive Director of
the Children’s law Center and now a lecturer at University of California
at Los Angeles and Loyola law schools.

[24]
US Government Accountability Office (agency name changed in July 2004),
“HHS Actions Would Help States Prepare Youth in the Foster Care System
for Independent Living,” July 2007, http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d071097t.pdf
(accessed August 22, 2007), p. 2.

The amount is divided among the 50 states, the
District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico and totaled $140 million per year, with
1.5 percent reserved for evaluation, technical assistance, performance
measurement, and data collection. To receive the funds, states must provide a
matching contribution of 20 percent in cash or in-kind contributions.

[26]
The social worker is permitted to document efforts by the county welfare
department to locate the youth when the youth is “not available”
for the hearing. California Welfare & Institutions Code §391(a)(1).

[28]
The law specifies that the department must report to the court that it has
provided certain documents such as a Social Security card, birth certificate,
health and education information, driver's license or identification card, a
letter prepared by the county welfare department stating the youth's name and
date of birth, dates he or she was in foster care, and if applicable, the death
certificate of the parent(s) and proof of the child's citizenship or legal residence.

[29]
California Department of Social Services Independent Living Program Policy
Unit, Child and Youth Permanency Branch, “Report on the Survey of the
Housing Needs of Emancipated Foster/Probation Youth,” June 2002,
http://www.dss.cahwnet.gov/cfsweb/res/PDF/RptontheHousingNeeds.pdf (accessed
September 14, 2009), p. 6.

[31]
US Department of Housing and Urban Development Office of Community Planning and
Development, “The Fourth Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress,”
July, 2009, http://www.hudhre.info/documents/4thHomelessAssessmentReport.pdf
(accessed March 12, 2010), Appendix C2: Point-In-Time Estimates from January
2008 of Homeless Population by State, p. c-4. According to that same
document, California’s total population was 36,756,666 and the rate of
homelessness for the state .43 percent. See also, Department of Housing and
Community Development, Division of Housing Policy Development, “California’s
Deepening Housing Crisis,” September 25, 2008, http://www.hcd.ca.gov/hpd/hc092508.pdf
(accessed March 4, 2009), p. 4.

[32]
Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, “2009 Greater Los Angeles
Homeless Count”, http://www.lahsa.org/docs/HC09/Homeless-Count-2009-Report.pdf
(accessed March 12, 2010), p. 1. Note that the 2009 homeless count concluded
that there was a more than 35 percent drop in the number of homeless persons in
the greater Los Angeles area between 2007 and 2009.

[40]
Human Rights Watch interview with James M., the director of a small emergency
shelter for youth under the age of 18, 2006. The shelter is located in
California, and the interview was in person. Neither the shelter name nor the
name of the director is used here to protect the identity of the shelter. The
fact that the shelter takes in youth over the age of 18 may jeopardize its
funding and licensing.

[41]
James speculated that the social workers may fear being turned away from the
shelter with an overage youth.

[43]
Generally couch surfing means staying at one friend’s house for a very
limited time (perhaps a few, or even just one night) and then moving on
to someone else’s living room so as to not wear out one’s welcome
or to hide the fact of homelessness.

[72]
Memorandum from Gregory Rose, Acting Deputy Director, Children and Family
Services Division, to All County Welfare Directors, All County Chief Probation
Officers, All Child Welfare Services Program Managers, All Independent Living
Program Managers, All Independent Living Program Coordinators, All County
Transitional Housing Coordinators, “New Transitional Independent Living
Plan (TILP) Agreement for Foster Youth,” July 18, 2008, http://calswec.berkeley.edu/calswec/02_TILP_CWW_ACL_08_31.pdf
(accessed August 1, 2009

[79]Mark
Courtney et al., “Midwest Evaluation of the Adult Functioning of Former
Foster Youth: Outcomes at Age 21,”December 2007,http://www.chapinhall.org/sites/default/files/ChapinHallDocument_2.pdf (accessed October 7, 2009),
p. 37. The report describes survey data collected from young people in
Wisconsin, Iowa, and Illinois, first at age 17 or 18 and then again at age 19.
This third report is based on interviews conducted with the young people when
they were 21 years old. This important data may in fact understate the problems
faced by former foster youth. For example, former foster youth in California
face a significantly higher cost of living than in Midwest states. In addition,
youth with developmental disabilities or severe mental illness that made it impossible
for them to participate in the initial interviews and youth who were
incarcerated or in a psychiatric hospital were excluded from participation in
the survey. Data on economic hardships were not collected from 6 percent of the
participants who had been incarcerated for at least three months at the time of
their interview.

[80]
Of the nine who had a source of income, two had Supplemental Security Income, a
federal government benefit conferred upon the death of a parent. The monthly
payments extend to age 21. One interviewee’s income derived from General
Assistance, a state benefit for individuals who are disabled; and one described
her income as “part-time.”

[81]
42 USC, §§ 677, 1396a(a); California Welfare & Institutions Code
§14005.28; California Department of Health Services, “All County
Welfare Director’s Letters,” 00-41, August 14, 2000, and 00-61,
November 22, 2000,
http://www.dhcs.ca.gov/services/medi-cal/eligibility/Pages/2000ACWDLs.aspx (accessed
August 4, 2009). It is unclear why this would be true unless there was
enrollment paperwork that was not completed. Thirty-five
interviewees did not have Medi-Cal when they left the state’s care,
and two of the interviewees stated that they did not know if they had it or
not.

[84]
Another program that exists in law but is rarely used is the Supportive
Transitional Emancipation Program, (STEP), which allows counties to provide
support to eligible youth up to age 21 who are pursuing educational or other
activities consistent with their transitional independent living plan. California
Welfare & Institutions Code §11403.1. Amy Lemley, the policy director
for the John Burton Foundation, told us, “At this point, STEP is not used
at all. The main reason is that STEP is an entitlement and if a county faced
financial difficulty, it does not have the legal option of discontinuing the
program.” Email communication from Amy Lemley to Human Rights Watch,
September 21, 2007.

[86]Sara
Kimberlin, Amy Lemley, and Michele Byrnes, John Burton Foundation for Children
without Homes, “Needs and Demographics of Former Foster Youth Entering
California’s THP-Plus Program: Findings from the Statewide
Participant-Tracking System,” July 2009, http://thpplus.org/pdfs/JBF_Policy_Brief.pdf
(accessed August 4, 2009), p. 2.

[87]
The THP-Plus Statewide Implementation Project is a collaboration of the John
Burton Foundation for Children Without Homes, the California Department of
Social Services, and the Corporation for Supportive Housing. The
organization’s website is http://thpplus.org.

[88]Sara
Kimberlin, Amy Lemley, and Michele Byrnes, John Burton Foundation for Children
without Homes, “Needs and Demographics of Former Foster Youth Entering
California’s THP-Plus Program: Findings from the Statewide
Participant-Tracking System,” July 2009,
http://thpplus.org/pdfs/JBF_Policy_Brief.pdf (accessed August 4, 2009), p. 2.

[90]
Barbara Needell et al., University of California at Berkeley Center for Social
Services Research, Child Welfare Services Reports for California, CWS/CMS 2009
Quarter 1 Extract, “Exits From Foster Care, Agency Type=Child Welfare,
January 1, 2008 to December 31, 2008”
http://cssr.berkeley.edu/ucb_childwelfare/Exits.aspx (accessed October 7,
2009). It is the entire population of 18- to 24-year-old former foster youth that
is eligible for THP-Plus, not just those who have emancipate in the current
year. In 2008, 4,653 youth emancipated, and the majority was 18 years old.
However, also eligible for THP-Plus would be other emancipated foster youth who
were under the age of 24 in 2008. That would include 4,566 youth who had
emancipated in 2007; the 4,417 who left in 2006; the 4,327 in 2005; 4,430 in
2004; and 4,216 in 2003. In 2008 there were 26,609 emancipated youth who met
the age requirements for THP-Plus.

[91]
The THP-Plus Statewide Implementation Project estimates that statewide THP-Plus
is serving between 22 to 37 percent of demand for the program. This estimate
relies on two possible homelessness rates, 13 to 22 percent, and compares these
rates to actual placements available in each county. Email from Amy Lemley, policy
director for the John Burton Foundation, to Human Rights Watch, October 8,
2009. Since not all youth entering THP-Plus placement have been homeless, the
need is larger than youth who have experienced homelessness.

[92]
The impact is disparate as well. Based on the number of emancipating foster
youth for years 2001 through 2008, Los Angeles’ population of
emancipating youth who would be eligible for a placement was 11,065. No other
county comes close in terms of sheer numbers. The county with the next highest
population is Sacramento, with 2,150 eligible youth. THP-Plus Statewide
Implementation Project, “Capacity by County 8-09”, received by
email attachment, from Amy Lemley to Human Rights Watch, October 8, 2009.

[97]
Human Rights Watch interview with James M., the director of a small emergency
shelter for youth under the age of 18, 2006.

[98]Human Rights Watch telephone interview with
Marty Beyer, Ph.D., Eugene, Oregon, November 21, 2006. Among other things, Dr.
Beyer is a member of the Katie A. case panel examining child welfare
reform in Los Angeles County. She has been an expert, consultant, and evaluator
in numerous cases and efforts across the country including in Alaska, Alabama,
Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida,
Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma,
Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Washington, and West Virginia.

[103]Human Rights Watch interview with Sandy N.,
age 22, 2008. The city and exact date are not given to further protect her
identity.

[104]
Foster parents described regulations that keep them from teaching independence.
For example, foster homes are required to lock up cleaning supplies. But locked
up cleaning supplies means that an older child or youth cannot use the washing
machine or clean the kitchen without supervision. A waiver of the rule is
permitted, but it has to be entered in to a child’s specific case plan
and many foster families may not know about that option. “When CCL comes
out [and inspects your house], if you [don’t] have a waiver and the
cleaning supplies [are] not locked up, you get cited. The thing is, most foster
parents don’t know about the waiver.” Human Rights Watch telephone
interview with Michele Phannix, Riverside, October 6, 2006. Foster parents have
concerns about similar regulations that forbid their leaving foster children
home alone, even if they are teenagers. Tina Hughes, a foster parent for many
years and the President of the Alameda Foster Parents’ Association, said,
“[When my biological children were teenagers,] if I had to go the store,
they could either come with me or stay here, [they didn’t] have to be
with me 24/7. But foster kids, if you leave them just 15 minutes, you get
written up.” Pat Ambers, a foster parent for over 30 years asked,
“How can you teach someone independence if you can’t leave them
alone in the house even if they are 16 years old?” Foster parents also
complained about not being able to require children in care to do chores the
way their biological children are required to. Human Rights Watch interviews
with Pat Ambers, Gerry Hauser, and Tina Hughes, Oakland, November 16, 2006.

[109]
Of the 63 youth interviewed for this report, 48 had spent time in group homes, and
15 had only been in foster home settings. Generally in California, only 6.8 percent
of all foster children and youth reside in group homes. See Barbara Needell et
al., University of California at Berkeley Center for Social Services Research, Child
Welfare Services Reports for California, CWS/CMS 2009 Quarter 1 Extract, “Children
in Foster Care, Agency Type=Child Welfare,” April 2009,
http://cssr.berkeley.edu/ucb_childwelfare/PIT.aspx (accessed October 7, 2009).

[112]
This is despite the fact that social workers are required to ensure that youth
have transportation to independent living program services. See California
Department of Social Services Manual of Policies and Procedures, Child Welfare
Services §31-236(g)(5).
One youth never attended classes because, she said, “[t]he group home
staff would complain and say that they’re not getting enough money to
take me to the classes.” Human Rights
Watch interview with Oceania V., age 18, Sacramento, November 17, 2006.
Grace-Kaho, the state Ombudsman, reported that some county classes are
over-enrolled and there are waiting lists to get in the courses.

[115]
She added, “Also what was cool is that they recognized that I was in a
serious relationship with my boyfriend and would probably move in with him at
some point, so they let him come to the Independent City, too. They met me
where I was.” Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Melissa B., age
20, Sacramento, January 5, 2007.

[117]
In order to explain what we meant by “crisis,” the researcher
added: “For example, if you had become very sick and needed to get to the
doctor but had no way to get there, would you have had an adult you could call
to give you a ride?”

[118]Human Rights Watch interview with Reclusive S., age
23, Berkeley, April 3, 2006. In some cases,
youth interviewed by Human Rights Watch chose their own pseudonyms. In other
cases, the Human Rights Watch researcher selected the pseudonyms.

[119]
Human Rights Watch interview with Roberta E., Hollywood, age 24, May 24, 2006.
California law requires every youth who emancipates to be assigned a caseworker
who assists them. The youth interviewed for this report stated that did not
have a worker, did not know how to reach the worker, or found the services of
the worker to be minimal. When asked if she had a caseworker, Nikki B., who was
18 years old at the time of her interview and living in a tent, said, “I
think I do but I have no idea who it is.”Human Rights Watch
interview with Nikki B., Sacramento, August 15, 2008.

[120]
The website of the California Permanency for Youth Project is http://www.cpyp.org.
In January 2010, the organization’s funding ended and it merged with
Seneca Center for Family Finding and Youth Connectedness.

[125]
Human Rights Watch interview with Mia S., age 20, Los Angeles, February 25,
2010. Ilia Jauregui is
the executive director of Fostering Imagination, a Los Angeles-
based program serving foster youth through creative arts and social development
programs. She told us, “[Mia] has become like a daughter to me.”
Human Rights Watch telephone conversation with Ilia Jauregui, March 1, 2010.

[134]
See Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, “Youth in the Margins, A
Report on the Unmet Needs of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender
Adolescents in Foster Care,” 2001, http://www.lambdalegal.org/our-work/publications/youth-in-the-margins.html
(accessed September 16, 2009).

[135]
Nicholas Ray, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual
and Transgender Youth: An Epidemic of Homelessness, (New York: National Gay
and Lesbian Task Force PolicyInstitute and the National Coalition for
the Homeless, 2006), http://www.thetaskforce.org/downloads/HomelessYouth.pdf (accessed
November 17, 2009), pp. 11-16. The report relies on US Department of Health and
Human Services estimates that there are between 575,000 to 1.6 million homeless
and runaway youth each year. Ibid., p. 1, citing Marjorie J. Robertson and Paul
A. Toro, Homeless Youth: Research, Intervention, and Policy,
(Washington, D.C.: United States Department of Health and Human Services, 1998).
http://aspe.hhs.gov/pic/reports/aspe/6817.pdf#page=75 (accessed August 3,
2009).

[140]Human Rights Watch interview with Phillip
O., Whittier, age 22, April 24, 2006. At 14 years old, things changed:
“Then … I got into a home where they really cared about me. I
stayed there until I was 18.” But when foster care ended, he was on his
own. “When I was eighteen…there was no place for me to go. I left
foster care with nothing—maybe I had a week’s set of clothes.”
On top of that, the foster family that he felt close to moved out of state,
leaving him with no emotional support. He was homeless for about six months,
“I slept on friends’ couches and in garages.”

[141]
American Academy of Pediatrics, Committee on Early Childhood, Adoption and
Dependent Care, “Developmental Issues for Young Children in Foster
Care,” Pediatrics, vol. 106, no. 5 (November 2000),
http://aappolicy.aappublications.org/cgi/reprint/pediatrics;106/5/1145.pdf
(accessed October 7, 2009), pp. 1146, 1148. See also Children and Family
Research Center, School of Social Work, University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign, “Multiple Placements in Foster Care: Literature Review
of Correlates and Predictors,” February 2004,
http://www.cfrc.illinois.edu/LRpdfs/PlacementStability.LR.pdf (accessed August
4, 2009).

[142]
The literature review conducted by the Children and Family Research Center
(ibid.) lists research finding a variety of negative affects of placement
instability, including the following: for children who initially did not
exhibit behavior problems but then had placement instability, later behavioral
problems were associated with the number of placements; infants who experienced
multiple placements experienced problems with attachment and bonding; and multiple
placements before age 14 were associated with higher rates of delinquency
filings after age 14.

[146]
Katherine Kortenkamp and Jennifer Ehrle Macomber, Urban Institute, “The
Well-Being of Children Involved with the Child Welfare System: A National
Overview,” Number B-43 in Series, New Federalism: National Survey of
America's Families, January 15, 2002,
http://www.urban.org/publications/310413.html (accessed March 4, 2009).

[155]
Elizabeth Fussell and Frank Furstenberg, “The Transition to Adulthood in
the Twentieth Century: Race, Nativity, and Gender,” in Richard
Settersten, Jr., Frank Furstenburg, Jr., and Ruben Rumbaut eds., On the
Frontier of Adulthood (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005) p. 29; Marilyn
Gardner, “Adult children back in the nest,” The Christian
Science Monitor, February 24, 2009.

[156]
ISR Update, University of Michigan Institute for Social Research, “From
Adolescence to Adulthood, Many Flourish but a Few Flounder,” Fall 2002,
p. 2.

[157]
Robert Schoeni and Karen Ross, “Material Assistance from Families During
the Transition to Adulthood,” in Richard Settersten, Jr., Frank
Furstenburg, Jr., and Ruben Rumbaut eds., On the Frontier of Adulthood (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2005) pp. 396-411.The authors note that children
in the top quarter in terms of family income received three times more material
assistance than children in the bottom quarter. Ibid., p. 115.

[158]
According to Shoeni and Ross, the actual annual assistance diminishes with age.
Ibid.

[159]
Annie E. Casey Foundation, Child Trends, Kids Count and Population Reference
Bureau, “The Transition to Adulthood: Characteristics of Young Adults
Ages 18 to 24 in America,” May 2005, p. 32. Source of data is the
Population Reference Bureau analysis of Census 2000 5-Percent Public Use
Microdata Sample (PUMS).

[161]
Mark Courtney, Amy Dworsky, and Harold Pollack, Chapin Hall Center for Children
at the University of Chicago,“When Should the State Cease
Parenting? Evidence from the Midwest Study,” December 2007, http://www.chapinhall.org/research/brief/when-should-state-cease-parenting
(accessed October 7, 2009).

[162]
Mark Courtney, Amy Dworsky, and Clark Peters, Partners for Our Children,
University of Washington,“California’s Fostering
Connections to Success Act and the Costs and Benefits of Extending Foster Care
to 21,” March 2, 2009, http://www.cafosteringconnections.org/pdfs/Courtney,%20Dworsky,%20&%20Peters%20(2009)%20FC%20to%2021.pdf
(accessed March 26, 2009), p. 12. See also Clark Peters et al,
Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago, “Extending
Foster Care to Age 21: Weighing the Costs to Government Against Benefits to
Youth,” June 2009, http://www.chapinhall.org/sites/default/files/publications/Issue_Brief%2006_23_09.pdf
(accessed September 16, 2009).

[166]
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), adopted December
16, 1966, 999 U.N.T.S. 171, entered into force March 23, 1976, ratified by the
United States on June 8, 1992, art. 24.

[167]
Because the United States has not ratified the Convention on the Rights of the
Child, it is not generally bound by the terms of the treaty. Nevertheless, it
has the obligation to refrain from actions that would defeat the convention’s
object and purpose. See Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, concluded May
23, 1969, 1155 U.N.T.S. 331, entered into force January 27, 1980. Although the
United States has not ratified the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, it
regards this convention as “the authoritative guide to current treaty law
and practice.” S. Exec. Doc. L., 92nd Cong., 1st
sess. (1971).

[168]
CRC, art. 19. Somalia and the United Sates are the only countries in the world
to not have ratified the CRC.

[171]
Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted November 20, 1989, G.A. Res.
44/25, U.N. Doc. A/RES/44/25, annex, 44 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No. 49) at 167, U.N.
Doc. A/44/49 (1989), entered into force September 2, 1990, signed by the United
States on February 16, 1995, preamble.

[172]
UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, General Comment 4, Adolescent health
and development in the context of the Convention on the Rights of the Child,
(Thirty-third session, 2003), para 3.

[173]
UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, General Comment 4, Adolescent health
and development in the context of the Convention on the Rights of the Child,
(Thirty-third session, 2003)), paras. 39(b), (a).

[179]
Ibid. Although the United States has not ratified the ICESCR and is
therefore not a state party, as a signatory to the ICESCR, it is bound to
not undertake policies or practices that would defeat the covenant's object and
purpose.

[180]
The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the UN body that is the
authoritative interpreter of the Covenant, has elaborated the article 2
requirement that states parties take steps "to the maximum of its
available resources" with a view towards "achieving
"progressively" the Covenant's rights. In explaining what
"progressive realization" entails, the Committee has said, "a minimum
core obligation to ensure the satisfaction of, at the very least, minimum
essential levels of each of the rights is incumbent upon every State party.
Thus, for example, a State party in which any significant number of individuals
is deprived of essential foodstuffs, of essential primary health care, of basic
shelter and housing, or of the most basic forms of education is, prima
facie, failing to discharge its obligations under the Covenant." Committee
on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, General Comment No. 3, para. 10
(emphasis added). "Progressive realization" also means, at minimum
that "any deliberately retrogressive measures in that regard would require
the most careful consideration and would need to be fully justified by reference
to the totality of the rights provided for in the Covenant and in the context
of the full use of the maximum available resources." Committee on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, General Comment No. 4, para. 9.

[182]
Tayana is probably not in the minority. In an examination of the foster
care population of Illinois, a state in which youth are permitted to say in
care up to age 21, researchers found that, “[c]ontrary to some anecdotal reports
that only a minority of foster youth would choose to remain in care past age 18
if given the opportunity, more than two-thirds of the Midwest Study’s Illinois
sample were still in care after their twentieth birthday, and more than half did
not leave care until age 21.”Mark Courtney, Amy Dworsky, and Harold
Pollack, Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago, “When
Should the State Cease Parenting? Evidence from the Midwest Study,”
December 2007, http://www.chapinhall.org/sites/default/files/publications/ChapinHallDocument_1.pdf
(accessed October 7, 2009), p. 3.

[184]
Human Rights Watch interview with Junior J., age 19, Sacramento, August 15,
2008. Junior had a part-time job, but perhaps more to the point, he did not
have a place to live when he emancipated. He slept behind the store and used a
hose to wash off in the morning.